


Cause and Effect

by azenki



Series: Chain Reaction [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, M/M, Sokka gets trapped in the spirit world, Spirited Away AU, aang and katara are trapped for most of the fic so don't expect them to turn up too much, as in so mild i forgot they were meant to be together in this until like halfway through the fic, but at least zuko's here to help, cameos from every single spirit ever mentioned in the series, don't worry it's not anyone we like, heads up there's a lot of swearing, no one wanted this but it's here anyway, sokka is So Confused, the zuko/sokka is super mild, uhhh mild body horror near the end? i think? i'm not sure if it qualifies, wan shi tong shows up a lot do i tag him as a character?, which is Really Not Fun, zuko's real name isn't used until the end because its a Plot Point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 73,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azenki/pseuds/azenki
Summary: "And your name is?""Sokka."The Phoenix King smiles down at him. "No. Not anymore."Or: Aang and Katara get trapped in the Spirit World. Sokka launches a rescue mission. It does not end well.(Otherwise known as that Spirited Away AU. The first two parts of this series don't need to be read.)
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Chain Reaction [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756933
Comments: 446
Kudos: 1626





	1. The City of Spirits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something shifts in the air as he makes his way through the streets, searching for the Town Hall. The sun is already half under the horizon.
> 
> And then the city comes to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is...literally so self indulgent. It's also super random, but I hope you enjoy?

Ba Sing Se creeps Sokka out.

First of all, it's a ghost town. Like an actual, proper ghost town. There are no signs of life anywhere—not even food left in the cupboards, or clothes folded on the bed. It's like everyone who was living here just disappeared, taking all their belongings with them.

"Ba Sing Se's been abandoned for years, Sokka," Katara says softly, when he brings it up. "You know that."

"Then why are we still _here?"_ Sokka watches Aang jump up onto one of the walls with a supernatural gust of air. That's another thing he doesn't like about Ba Sing Se: the walls. Who divides their city like that? They've already passed one wall, and this is the second. It's scary and weird and he doesn't like it.

Katara sighs. They've already gone over this dozens of times; Sokka doesn't like the idea of them stopping to search an entire city, but he was outnumbered two-to-one. 

"Ba Sing Se was a city of benders," she recites, like she always does whenever they have this argument. "Even if no one lives here anymore, there might still be some information left on bending."

"Yeah, except bending's been extinct for a _hundred fifty years,"_ Sokka snipes back. "You and Aang are already genetic miracles. What are the chances of there being a whole city of benders, Katara?"

"Gran-Gran said—"

"Gran-Gran hasn't been outside the Poles for fifty years! What if the stories about Ba Sing Se are just—well— _stories? "_

"You don't _get it!"_ Katara whirls on him, her eyes blazing. "Aang and I—bending's in our _blood._ We _need_ to learn more about it. Or have you forgotten why we left the South Pole in the first place?" She throws out a hand at Aang, who's currently gliding far above their heads. "Look at what he can _do,_ Sokka! If I could just learn more about waterbending—"

"Aang grew up a century and a half ago, when bending was still a thing! Katara, the only reason he's an airbender is because some waterbender trapped him in the iceberg before all the benders got wiped out. If you grew up back then, you'd be a master too."

His sister deflates in a way that makes his heart hurt a little. He knows how much she cares about her bending, but the fact remains that bending is all but extinct. And judging from what they've already seen of Ba Sing Se, the chances of them miraculously finding a scroll left behind by the city's inhabitants are next to none.

"Katara! Sokka!"

They both look up to see Aang perched on top of a fancy-looking building. He's waving at them, a wide grin on his face.

"What is it, Aang?" Sokka calls back. The tiny airbender jumps down and lands in front of them.

"This is the Town Hall," he says excitedly. "If there were any records of bending, they'd be kept here."

"Seriously?" Katara lights up and barges into the building before Sokka can stop her. Aang whoops and runs in after her.

Sokka sighs and follows them. He's already preparing himself for the disappointment on their faces when they realise that there aren't any—

" _Bending scrolls!"_ Katara gasps, pulling out drawer after drawer. Inside, Sokka can see dozens of neatly rolled up scrolls, each labelled with the symbol of an element. "Here's earth—and air—and—"

Her hands fly to her mouth, and she honestly looks like she's about to cry. Sokka peers down into the drawer to see row after row of scrolls sealed with blue.

"Water," she whispers, and reaches out to take one reverently. On the other side of the room, Aang's already nestled among dozens of airbending scrolls. Sokka doesn't really know why, since he's technically already an airbending master, but Aang's always going on about how he's forgotten some of the more complicated forms.

Katara takes a handful of waterbending scrolls and sinks to her knees, unrolling one and reading it with a kind of hunger. Sokka looks from her to Aang; neither bender seems likely to get up anytime soon.

"I'll just, uh..." He jerks a thumb at the door. "Go exploring."

Neither of them reply, too engrossed in the scrolls to care. Sokka sighs; by now, he's used to taking a backseat to bending.

He meanders out of the Town Hall and strolls along, peeping into houses and shops along the way. At one point, he sees a sign for a weapons shop, but it's as empty as the rest of the city. 

Sokka's starting to get the feeling that, when Ba Sing Se still had people living in it, it was divided by class. From here, he can see that the city is divided into three rings; this ring is by far the nicest part of the city he's seen so far, while the first ring—the one closest to the main gate—had been little more than a glorified slum. The thought of making the class divide _that_ obvious rubs him up the wrong way.

It's only when he sees the palace that he remembers Ba Sing Se used to have a king. And damn, it's a nice palace; Sokka stands in front of it marvelling at the architecture as the sun starts to go down. He turns around in a slow circle, watching as the shadows of the city start growing longer, and he thinks it's probably time to head back. He _really_ doesn't want to have to make his way back to the Town Hall by himself, in the dark.

"What are you doing here?"

Sokka jumps and whirls around. There's a boy standing in front of him, where there had very clearly not been a boy before.

The boy's wearing clothes that Sokka's never seen before: red and gold robes, pointy black boots, a golden sash around his waist. He's got shaggy black hair and startling pale skin and—

 _Woah._ That is a massive fucking scar. 

"I _said,"_ the boy hisses, " _what are you doing here?"_

"Hey, I'm just exploring." Sokka holds up his hands. "That's not a crime, is it? I mean, I don't think it's a crime. 'Cause, y'know, this place has been abandoned for like a hundred years." He squints at the boy. "Speaking of that, where did you come from?"

The boy hunches in on himself, his gaze darting around them nervously. He strides towards Sokka, his face dark, and Sokka can't help but take a step backwards. This guy is _intense._

The boy grabs him by the shoulders and looks him in the eyes (and _wow,_ his eyes are the brightest gold Sokka's ever seen). “ _L_ _isten to me,”_ he hisses. “This is no place for humans, especially not at sunset. Run, now, before they light the lanterns.”

“Dude.” Sokka stares at him. “What?”

The boy shakes him, violently. “Did you not hear me? This is a place for spirits, not for you. Get to the Lower Ring, _quickly!”_

“The Lower—?”

The boy spins him around and points at the rings in rapid succession, starting with the one they're standing in and ending with the one closest to the gate. “Upper Ring. Middle Ring. Lower Ring. Now _run!”_

There's an urgency in his voice that Sokka just can't ignore. He runs.

* * *

The sun’s setting. Normally, this would be a comfort for Sokka—he’s always felt better when he could see the moon.

Not tonight.

Something _shifts_ in the air as he makes his way through the streets, searching for the Town Hall. The sun is already half under the horizon.

And then the city comes to life.

Sokka bites down on a scream as lanterns start flickering around him, even though there'd been no one there to light them. The silent city starts becoming a lot less silent—he can hear the clatter of doors and windows being thrown wide open, the sizzle of meat cooking in a pan, the shuffling of footsteps on stone. Shops and storefronts start lighting up, and when Sokka looks in the windows, he sees food cooking in the restaurant kitchens.

And, because he has the _worst_ luck, the spirits start appearing.

Sokka's never really been a big believer in the spirit world. In the South Pole, there hadn't been any spirit stories apart from the tales of those lost to the blizzards, or how if you saw a smudge on the horizon it was a tundra sprite. But here, in Ba Sing Se?

These spirits are very, very real and very, very terrifying.

They're all weird and grey and none of them seem to have a real shape. Or, if they do have a shape, then they don't stick to it for very long. They melt out of thin air and rise out of the street, and Sokka ducks and turns and weaves to avoid running straight through them. They're all formless and colourless and he does _not_ want to find out what happens if he touches them.

The worst part is that they have eyes. He can't tell if they have arms or legs or tails or _what,_ but he knows for sure that they have eyes.

He almost sobs with relief when the roof of the Town Hall comes into view. If he can just grab Aang and Katara, Aang can glide them out to the Lower Ring, and they can escape. They'll grab the bending scrolls and they'll _escape_ from this horrible spirit city.

The Town Hall doors are thrown wide open by the time he skids to a stop in front of it. The lanterns are lit, flooding the street with warm yellow light. Sokka scrambles up the stairs and—

He stops dead in his tracks.

The first thing he sees are the two piles of familiar clothing on the floor. They're just—heaps of cloth, like the bodies inside them have disintegrated.

The second thing he sees are the animals. Nestled in the folds of Katara's dress is a black koi fish, with Katara's necklace clasped tight around its middle. Perched on top of Aang's clothes is an animal Sokka's only seen in the airbender's drawings: a flying lemur, except this one has arrows marking its head and limbs.

The third thing he sees is the spirit leaning over both of them, its strange shapeless limb raised in the air like it's preparing to deal them a blow. Clutched tight in its 'hand' is a dark whip.

A terrible understanding rips through him, and he stares in horror as the spirit brings down the whip.

It hits both the fish and the lemur at the same time. The lemur cries out, falling forwards, and Sokka takes a step back.

The spirit looks up sharply, its eyes making direct contact with Sokka's own, and—

Sokka's not proud of it, but he runs.

* * *

The city is _alive._ Spirits swarm around him, and he can smell meat cooking in the air. Strings of lanterns line the streets. Shops and houses have their doors thrown wide open. 

Sokka closes his eyes. Okay. Think. He has to _think._

Katara is a koi fish and Aang is a lemur. That's...something he'll think about later. Right now, he has to figure out what to do next. 

He can’t get Aang and Katara back, at least not now. What he _can_ do is get to the Lower Ring, like that boy had told him to, and he’ll come back tomorrow when it’s daylight to try and bust them out.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good plan.

He has a feeling he sticks out among the mass of spirits, seeing as he actually has a shape, so he shimmies his way up to the rooftops with the help of a very conveniently placed crate. On the roof, it’s easier to breathe. Probably because he’s not being caged in by spirits on all sides. 

As he makes his way to the Middle Ring, he keeps his eyes peeled. There _are_ spirits on the rooftops, but they’re not like the spirits on the ground. They seem vaguely human—as in, they have a head and two arms and they stand on two legs—and it looks like they’re wearing robes. Most of them vanish the moment he turns to look at them head-on, but at one point he catches sight of one of them wearing a wide-brimmed hat.

...Though that could’ve been its head. Sokka _really_ can’t tell.

The wall of the Middle Ring is only a few rooftops away, and Sokka sighs in relief. Once he gets past it, all he has to do is parkour his way through another ring. He has a plan. He’s the plan guy. He can _do this._

He reaches the wall.

Scratch that. He can’t do this.

* * *

The Middle Ring is full of _water._

Dark, still, silent water. It fills the Ring all the way up to the very tips of the wall. Sokka crouches down and dips a finger in, just to test it.

Yep. Definitely water.

...What the _fuck._

He stands up and stares out across the Middle Ring. The water stretches out all the way to the next wall. Beyond it, he can see the lights of the Lower Ring.

So. Apparently, at sunset, the Middle Ring fills with water. The Upper Ring and Lower Ring don’t. Which means that Sokka’s escape route is blocked by a giant fucking _lake_ which will apparently stay here all night.

Why oh why couldn’t he have been born a waterbender?

Not that it really matters. There’s so much water he doubts even Katara could’ve gotten far. 

Okay. New plan. Wait until sunrise. He can do that, right?

Yeah, he can do that. 

His stomach grumbles. It's been a while since he's had anything to eat, and the smell of the spirits cooking their weird spirit-meat hasn't done him any favours. Good thing he keeps a strip of seal jerky on him at all times.

Sokka shoves his hand in his pocket to get the jerky. Or, well, he tries to, because instead of going in his pocket his hand goes _through_ his fucking _leg._

He yanks it out and stares at it, and—okay, yep, he's turning transparent. This is not a drill. He can _see_ through his _hand,_ which is not something he should be able to do.

He tries to touch the wall, and his hand passes through it like there's nothing there.

Sokka swallows. So he can’t leave the city, but if he stays then he fades to nothing. That’s cool. That’s totally cool.

It is so not cool.

Something glitters on the water, and Sokka squints to see what it is. It's coming closer, and he's pretty sure he can hear what sounds like festival music coming from it.

...It's a boat. Because of course it's a boat.

Sokka ducks down under the wall and watches as it draws closer. It cuts through the water, but it doesn't make any ripples, and it leaves no wake behind. He's pretty sure this is a ship of spirits, and when the boat gets close enough for him to see its passengers, his suspicions are confirmed.

The spirits don't have _bodies._ They're just...floating, grinning faces. And they're not even proper faces, they're _masks._

Sokka shudders. He's never going to sleep peacefully again.

He watches as the boat comes to a stop just before it hits the wall. The spirits disembark, and as they come off the water their bodies bloom into existence—literally. Sokka watches in fascinated horror as bodies grow from their masks. And, because this just can't get any weirder, the bodies aren't real bodies—they're cloaks. Or they look like cloaks.

Sokka's brain hurts.

Someone taps him on the shoulder, and he just about jumps out of his skin. He whirls around, heart pumping in his chest—

It's the boy from before, the boy with the scar, and Sokka relaxes just a little. It's nice to see someone who looks human.

In retrospect, this guy is totally a spirit. But he tried to warn Sokka to leave, so he can't be all bad.

"You _idiot,"_ the boy snarls, and Sokka immediately revokes whatever thoughts he'd had about the boy being nice. "Why didn't you leave? I told you to leave!"

"What, you think I _wanted_ to stay?!" Sokka snarks back. "Besides, my sister and friend need my help. They got turned into—"

"Animals," the boy finishes, looking grim. "What did they do?"

"What? They didn't do anything! The only reason we came here was to get information—"

"Ah." The boy nods. " _That's_ why. They took something they weren't invited to take."

Sokka stares at him. "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Because it doesn't. It really doesn't."

The boy makes a frustrated sound. "I _mean_ that they shouldn't have taken information. It's basic manners—if you want something, ask permission. Your friends didn't ask permission, and they paid the price."

Sokka's jaw drops. "But the city was _abandoned!_ How were they supposed to know they needed to ask permission? Who were we supposed to ask?"

The boy gives him a scathing look. "The librarian. Who else?"

Sokka splutters. "But no one—that's not—that's so _unfair!_ How can you expect us to play by rules we don't know?"

"Typical," the boy mutters, shifting like he's about to walk away. "Your kind always complains about things being unfair."

Anger flares in Sokka's stomach. He's scared and confused and his friends might be stuck as animals forever, and now some scarred spirit boy is talking shit about _his kind._ He's not standing for it. 

"We do _not—"_ he snarls, making a grab for the boy's wrist. It's meant to be a grand gesture, something that stops the spirit dead in his tracks, because for once Sokka wants to be the one who shocks _him._

It backfires, though, because his hand goes straight through.

Sokka stares at his hand, his stomach sinking. Right. The fading. He'd forgotten about that.

The boy looks down at Sokka's hand with a pensive look on his face. "Stay here."

"Stay what?"

"Stay _here,"_ the boy orders, and then he's gone, jumping over the rooftops and disappearing out of sight. Sokka stares after him.

Well. What other choice does he have?

He curls up with his knees to his chest and cradles his hands in front of him. His fingertips have already completely faded. He doesn't want to think about what it'll feel like when the rest of him fades too.

A soft shuffling sound to his left alerts him to the boy's presence. He's returned, crouching down one rooftop over, and as Sokka watches he leaps over to land silently in front of him.

The boy shoves his hand in Sokka's face. "Eat."

Sokka stares down at the boy's hand. He's holding a clump of dark red berries, which look very poisonous, no thank you. 

"I am _not_ eating that," he says, craning his head away. 

"If you want to live through the night, you will," the boy snaps. "Now _eat."_

Sokka eyes the berries, then his rapidly fading hand. "This will stop the—?"

"The smoking? Yes."

"Smoking," Sokka muses, as he plucks out a berry that looks marginally less poisonous than the others. "Is that what it's called?'

There's no change in the boy's expression. "I _told_ you this place wasn't for humans. It's a city of spirits. You need to have some semblance of spirit inside you to survive the night."

Sokka almost spits out the berry. "You mean these are—?!"

"No!" The boy looks disgusted, withdrawing his hand. "It's just—it's food from the spirit world. If you keep eating spirit food, you'll be able to survive. Eat nothing but spirit food for three days straight, and you'll even lose your smell."

"My _smell?"_

"Human smell," the boy clarifies. "Right now, you reek of human. The other spirits will sniff you out immediately."

Sokka swallows. The berry leaves a sour aftertaste in his mouth. "Is it possible to get my friends back?"

The boy is silent for long enough that Sokka's stomach starts twisting itself into knots. "Yes," he says at last, "but it'll be hard."

"I can do it," Sokka says, even though he's very extra sure he can't. "All I need to know is how."

The boy gazes out to the Upper Ring, where the king's palace is lit up bright. He stands abruptly and holds out his hand.

"Then," he says, his gold eyes like molten flame, "you'd better come with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some things you should know about this universe that were mentioned but not fully explained:  
> \- Aang is not the avatar. He's an airbender, but he's not the avatar. In this universe, the avatar doesn't exist.  
> \- Bending (all forms of bending) is basically extinct. There was a mass genocide of all benders a century and a half ago.  
> \- Aang was still stuck in the iceberg, except it was a waterbender who froze him in there and not himself. Katara and Sokka still found him, and when they discovered he was a bender they decided to go in search of more information about bending, in hopes that they could possibly revive it.


	2. The Phoenix King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka stares.  
> "They're foxes," he says.  
> "Yes," the spirit replies.  
> Sokka feels like this conversation is taking place on two separate planes of reality. "Your servants," he repeats, "are foxes."

The boy leads him all the way back to the palace, keeping to back alleys and rooftops. To Sokka's relief, they don't run into any other spirits, though at one point the boy _does_ shove him up against the wall.

"What the—"

" _Shh,"_ the boy hisses. His eyes are fixed on the sky above them. Sokka glances up and catches sight of some kind of red-and-gold bird, circling over the city.

"Is it—" Sokka swallows. "Is it patrolling?"

The boy nods, never taking his eyes off it. Finally, the bird wheels away, presumably to go do its creepy spying on some other part of the city.

"We can't let anyone know you're human until we get to the palace," the boy says. "Stick close to me and _don't speak."_

Sokka keeps his lips sealed shut until the palace comes into view, which is a monumental effort considering how naturally chatty he is. He peeks out around a wall and feels his jaw drop.

"Holy shit," he whispers, because the palace has changed _completely._

Instead of the flat stone courtyard he'd stood in before, there's a lazy river stretching out as far as the eye can see. A wooden bridge arches over it, and on that bridge...

Sokka swallows back a whimper. These spirits are nothing like the grey blobs he'd seen before; they're tangible, and physical, and _terrifying._

There's a black-and-white bear, and a two-headed frog, and a baboon without a face. There's a beautiful girl with white hair who seems to be _glowing,_ and another woman with a wide, flat hat and red markings on her face. There's a set of spirits that give Sokka the major heebie-jeebies, clad in tattered black-and-purple robes with hoods drawn low over their faces. There's an endless parade of animals, all of whom look _almost_ normal: the foxes' eyes are too bright, the aye-aye's fur is too white, the frog is walking on _two legs._ Sokka shrinks back, suddenly feeling way, _way_ in over his head.

"Hey." The boy nudges him gently. "You'll be fine once we get over the bridge. Hang onto my arm and don't let go. When I tell you to, hold your breath and don't let it out until we're over the bridge."

Sokka nods. He doesn't think he's capable of speech right now. His throat seems to have closed up and crawled away to die.

The boy (Sokka should probably learn his name) offers his arm, and Sokka takes it. He's surprisingly warm, and Sokka leans into him as they step out from behind the wall.

He waits for one of the spirits to point at him and scream, "Human!" 

It doesn't happen. No one so much as looks at him. They walk towards the bridge at a steady pace, and right before they step on it, the boy whispers, " _Now."_

Sokka draws in the biggest breath he's ever taken in his life as he takes his first step onto the bridge. They're surrounded by spirits on all sides now, but no one seems to notice him. A fox turns its head to stare at him a moment too long, and Sokka's sure it's about to raise the alarm, but instead it just bounds off to the end of the bridge.

Tui and La, the bridge is a lot longer than it looks. His lungs are about to burst. He claps a hand over his mouth to keep himself from breathing, and the boy murmurs, "Almost there."

They _are_ almost there, only a few steps from the end of the bridge. They take another step—and another—and—

"Master Kou!" A fucking _frog_ jumps up in front of them, so suddenly Sokka gasps. The frog falls back, its eyes widening as Sokka is made abruptly, completely visible.

"A human!" it squeaks, and suddenly spirits all over the bridge are turning to look. Sokka's fucked, he's so fucked—

The boy shoves his hand at the frog, palm out, and suddenly the tiny fucker's encased in a sphere of fire. Sokka doesn't have time to do more than gape before the boy's grabbing his wrist and they're _running,_ leaping over animals and pushing bigger spirits out of the way. Someone behind them shouts, and the boy throws out his hand—a wave of heat spreads out behind them, stopping any pursuers in their tracks.

They skid to a stop beside a garden gate, which the boy unlocks and ushers him into. They keep their heads down and make their way along a winding garden path, finally coming to a stop when they reach a paper screen door.

Inside, Sokka can see the silhouettes of dozens of people running around. They're all shouting, everyone trying to be louder than each other, but two words feature more than any others.

"Master Kou!"

"Master Kou!

"Does anyone know where Master Kou is?"

"Kou," Sokka notes, turning to the boy. "That's you?"

He scowls, making the scar on his face deepen. "Yes."

"Cool," Sokka says, and doesn't pry. "What now?"

Kou leans forward and presses two fingers to Sokka's brow. A series of images flash through his mind: a back path behind the building, a rickety wooden staircase, a door bolted shut. In a soft, low voice, Kou begins to speak.

"This building here is the bathhouse. When things calm down, go around the side and take the first turn on the left. You'll see a staircase; take it. At the end of it, you'll reach a door—it's the back door to the library. Open it. Go inside. Ask the owl spirit for a job; he's the librarian, and his name is Wan Shi Tong. He'll refuse, but you have to insist until he says yes."

Kou pulls back, his voice still ringing in Sokka's ears. "Got it?"

Sokka swallows. His mouth is inexplicably dry. "Yeah. I got it."

"Good." Kou stands and dusts off his clothes. "I'll come find you tomorrow. For now, just focus on getting a job."

Sokka shrinks back into the bushes as Kou pushes aside the screen door. The voices inside immediately get louder.

"Master Kou! You're back!"

"Master Kou, we need you to—"

"Master—"

"Relax, I'm here," Kou says, his voice cold and flat. The screen door slides shut behind him.

Sokka kneels there in the garden for long enough that, by the time he stands, his knees and back are aching. Finally, the din from inside the bathhouse begins to quiet, and he makes his way around the side.

Sure enough, after the first left turn, he sees a wooden staircase leading down the side of the palace. Sokka hasn't had a lot of experiences with staircases, but even he can tell this is structurally unsound. But what other choice does he have?

Miraculously, the staircase holds. He still tries to be as quick as possible, darting from step to step despite the fact that if he slips he'll be falling into oblivion. By the time he reaches the library door, his heart is trying to pound out of his chest.

The bolt is heavy and hard to move, but it's not impossible. Sokka pushes it out of the way and spends a moment just staring at the door, wondering if he's really about to do this.

Yeah. He is.

He takes a deep breath and pushes the door open.

* * *

The library is dark in an almost comforting way. The lanterns are few and far between, and Sokka feels a bit like he's just walked into the igloo at home after lights-out. 

It's completely silent, save for a faint rustling sound that Sokka can't quite identify. There's movement in the corner of his eye, and he turns to find one of the foxes from the bridge. It's sitting on its haunches, its eyes pinpricks of light in the dark, and it regards him in a way that makes him feel distinctly self-conscious.

"Please stop judging me," he mutters, shuffling away from the fox.

The fox does not stop judging him.

Sokka looks around the library in a desperate attempt to do anything but look at the fox, mainly because he knows he'll probably end up in a staring contest with it, and he'll definitely lose. Kou had told him to talk to the librarian, the owl spirit, but there's no one here but Sokka and the fox.

"Hello?" he calls out. He feels like maybe his voice should be echoing, but it doesn't. "Anyone here?"

The rustling sound stops. That feels like it might be an answer, so Sokka calls out, "Wan Shi Tong?"

"Yes?"

"What the—"

Sokka jumps back as an owl pokes its head out from behind one of the shelves. 

Holy shit. When Kou had said 'the owl spirit', he'd neglected to mention that the owl was _super fucking tall_ _._ He'd also neglected to mention that the owl apparently had an _extendable neck,_ which it uses now to bring itself face-to-face with Sokka.

"Why are you in my library?" The owl—Wan Shi Tong—stares directly in Sokka's eyes. It's terrifying.

Sokka swallows. "I'd like to ask you for a job."

"No," Wan Shi Tong says flatly, and his neck begins to retract.

"Wait!" Sokka holds out his hands. "I—I can help you reshelve your books. Do you have an organisation system?" He scans the nearest shelf of books, which seems to be full of topics that are completely different. "Yeah, nah. I can fix that. We can do it in alphabetical order, or by subject, separate fiction and non-fiction—"

"Quiet." The owl's eyes glitter. "Spirits do not need organisation. Only humans do."

Sokka's mouth goes dry. "...Ah."

"And I do not need helpers," Wan Shi Tong continues. "I have more than enough." He nods at the fox, who makes a purring kind of sound deep in its throat and pads away into the depths of the library.

Sokka stares.

"They're foxes," he says.

"Yes," the spirit replies.

Sokka feels like this conversation is taking place on two separate planes of reality. "Your servants," he repeats, "are foxes."

"My helpers," Wan Shi Tong corrects. "My knowledge seekers. They bring me information from all over the world every day. I have no use for whatever services you could bring me."

Sokka's heart stutters with panic. "But I _need_ a job. Like, life-or-death need."

"Life and death mean nothing to me," Wan Shi Tong says calmly. "If, however, it were a case of gaining or losing knowledge—"

"Yes!" Sokka says quickly. "That's what it is. A gain-lose-knowledge kinda situation."

Wan Shi Tong regards him with a cool detachment. "Very well. You will find no work in my library, but I am willing to pass you on to the Phoenix King. It will be his choice as to whether or not a human is allowed to work in his palace."

Sokka's mouth goes dry. "Wait. You're passing me on to the king? Like, the guy who runs this place? I don't—"

Wan Shi Tong pays him no heed, turning to whistle shrilly into the library. An answering cry comes back—no doubt from one of the foxes—followed by the tinkle of a bell.

Somewhere in the library, a door slides open and shut. A girl's voice shouts out, "Where are you, you owl-faced bastard?"

Sokka winces, but Wan Shi Tong doesn't seem offended. In fact, he _chuckles._ "Here, Toph. I have a task for you."

The owner of the voice comes stomping around the corner, and Sokka starts. Either she's super super short, or this girl's, like, _twelve._ She barely reaches his chin.

When she comes to a stop in front of them, her nose wrinkles. "A human? Really?"

Sokka wonders if he should be offended.

"He wants a job," Wan Shi Tong tells her, nudging Sokka in her direction. "Take him to Phoenix King Ozai."

The girl—Toph—shudders. "Sorry, human," she says, finally turning to Sokka, "but you're dead."

"And you're blind," Sokka says automatically, because that's the first thing that comes to mind. It's true, though; beneath her black fringe, Toph's eyes are blank and grey.

She scowls. "And so what if I am?"

"Nothing!" Sokka holds up his hands, then remembers she can't see them. Oh well; it's the thought that counts. "It's cool. There's nothing wrong with being blind. But there _is_ something wrong with telling me I'm dead before I actually, y'know. Die."

"You're going to," Toph says casually. "You're a human going to meet Phoenix King Ozai. I'd be surprised if he didn't kill you."

"Then prepare to be amazed," Sokka tells her, and she snorts.

"Come on, then," she says, turning and beckoning over her shoulder. "We've got a Phoenix King to see."

* * *

Toph has no problem at all navigating the palace, even though she's blind. When Sokka asks, all she says is, "Seismic sense," which makes absolutely no sense to Sokka and apparently all the sense in the world to Toph.

The palace is absolutely _packed._ At one point, the hallway turns into a balcony, and Sokka peers down to see tubs full of steaming water.

Toph waves a hand at it. "This part's the bathhouse," she says nonchalantly. "It's where I work."

"You work here?" Sokka asks, surprised. He'd thought she worked for Wan Shi Tong, but apparently not.

"Mhm. I bring the owl bastard his food, but that's all I have to do with him." She leads Sokka into an elevator at the end of the hallway. Sokka's jaw drops; growing up in the Water Tribe, he's only ever heard of elevators: boxes that can lift individuals up or down, simply by using cables and pulleys and weights. It's the first time he's ever actually been in one. 

The walls of the elevator are open, and Sokka leans forward in amazement as Toph pulls a lever and the elevator starts going up. 

"Don't do that," she says gruffly, tugging on his shirt. "Not unless you want to get your nose taken off by the wall."

Sokka backs away after that. 

The elevator just keeps going and going and _going,_ until it finally comes to a stop. The doors slide open, and Sokka's stomach drops.

They're standing at the end of a hallway, and it's completely, utterly different to the rest of the palace. It's dark, but not like the library; it's dark like fear, dark like terror, dark like the water of the Middle Ring.

"Good luck," Toph says, and her voice wavers. "I'm not coming with you past here."

Sokka ignores how his hands tremble when he steps out of the elevator. "Thanks, Toph. See you downstairs."

"See you," she echoes, and the doors slide shut.

* * *

The hallway looks straightforward enough. Literally. It's a single hallway, straight as an arrow, ending with red-and-gold double doors that no doubt lead to the Phoenix King. 

Sokka walks right up to those double doors and tells himself: _I can do this._ All he has to do is ask the king for a job. Easy, right? Yeah. He can totally do this.

He's just about to push open the doors when the golden knocker fucking _talks._

"What, aren't you going to knock?"

Sokka jumps about five feet in the air. "Holy _shit!"_  
  
"Such a foul mouth," the other knocker notes, and Sokka scrambles backwards, landing on his ass. "How do you plan on getting a job if you talk like that?"

"Rude," the first knocker agrees. "Very rude."

Sokka presses a hand to his chest, trying to calm his heart. The knockers are twin bird heads, each with a golden ring in its mouth.

"Well?" the left knocker demands. "Are you going to knock or not?"

"R-Right." Sokka gets to his feet. His legs feel like they're made of jelly. 

He reaches out and takes the right knocker in hand. He lifts it, lets it fall—

_"Enter."_

The voice is cold and harsh and paralysing. Sokka stands frozen, his feet rooted to the spot, one hand still holding the knocker's ring.

_"I said **enter."**_

The front of Sokka's shirt jerks forward, like something small and sharp has taken hold of him. The doors slam open, revealing another set behind them, and—

Whatever it is that's holding him, it shoots forward with a sudden burst of speed. Sokka yelps as it drags him through three sets of double doors that open as he reaches them, then through a literal labyrinth of hallways, until finally it throws him into what looks like an office.

The stop is so sudden that Sokka stumbles, very nearly faceplanting into the plush carpet floor. By some stroke of luck, he doesn't. 

Sokka grits his teeth, pulls himself to his feet, and turns to face the king.

* * *

The Phoenix King is much less intimidating than Sokka expected. He looks—well—he looks like a man, middle-aged and dark-haired, with a beard and a five-pronged crown in his hair. There's nothing really spiritual or otherworldly about him, other than his eyes. 

Sokka shudders. The eyes are bright, blazing gold, and they stare right into Sokka's soul, fixing him to the spot.

He waits for the king to say something. That's polite, right? You wait for the king to speak first?

But the king...doesn't. Instead, he looks back down to his desk, where he's scratching down characters onto a piece of paper. There's a red-and-gold bird perched on his chair, staring at Sokka with beady black eyes. It's _t_ _he_ red-and-gold bird, Sokka realises with a start—the same bird that Kou had hidden him from, when they were on their way to the palace.

Finally, Sokka can't stand the silence anymore. "Sir, I'd like to ask for a job."

"I know," the Phoenix King replies, but he doesn't even look up. He raises his brush, makes a swiping motion with his hand, and—

Sokka's mouth zips itself shut. He grabs at it frantically, but it doesn't move. 

Oh, gods. Tui and La and everything else. He can't open his mouth. He can't talk, he can't eat, he can't—

"Stupid requests," the king says smoothly, "shouldn't be made at all. This city is no place for humans."

He puts down his brush, looking up at Sokka with those cold gold eyes. "You really think I would give a _human_ a job? The spirits come to my palace to replenish their chi, and you humans do nothing but diminish everything you put your hands on. Like your friends—the benders. Stealing information like a couple of worthless thieves."

With every word that comes out of his mouth, Sokka hates him more. 

"They got what they deserved." The king lights his fingertip on fire, touching it to the paper he's just finished writing. It catches alight instantly, curling and blackening. "You should be punished, too. Perhaps you could be a slug. Or maybe a monkey."

The thing is, Sokka knows the king's just trying to scare him. But he can't deny that the king's magic is strong enough to light a fire at his fingertips, and to drag Sokka through the palace halls, and to seal his mouth shut indefinitely. He knows that, at any moment, the king could easily follow through on his threat.

"I can see you shaking," the king muses, folding his hands together. "Actually, I'm impressed you made it this far. Though I'm sure you didn't do it alone." His eyes glint dangerously, and here, _finally,_ is something Sokka understands. He's seen that glint in the eyes of polar-bear-dogs and snow leopards—it's the glint of a predator preparing to pounce.

"So let's thank whoever helped you, shall we?" The king raises his hand. "Why don't you tell me who it was?"

He makes a sharp cutting motion with his hand, and Sokka can open his mouth again. He works his jaw a couple times, just to make sure he can, and looks back up at the Phoenix King.

"I just want a job," he says firmly. "That's all."

The king's face darkens. " _No._ Don't start that again, you measly little rat."

"It's just a job!" Sokka protests. "Can't you just give me a damn job?"

The king rises from his seat and oh, Sokka _fucked up._ The look in his eyes is downright murderous, and there goes Sokka, bye-bye, he's dead.

 _Damn it,_ he thinks. _Toph was right._

The king stalks towards him, and is it Sokka's imagination, or are his nails turning into claws? He jabs one of them into Sokka's chest, and—yep, definitely claws. It pushes just under Sokka's ribcage, sharp enough to gut him if the king wanted to.

"Why, pray tell, would I give you a job?" the king scoffs. He's tall, _really_ tall, towering over Sokka. "It's clear you're a lazy, good-for-nothing worm who doesn't even know how to knock. You think my palace hires half-brains? _Please."_

Sokka curls his hands into fists. Oh, what he wouldn't give to punch this guy's face in. "I just want to work." He pauses, then adds, " _Please."_

"So the half-brain knows his manners, hm?" The king's talon drags upwards, making a very clear threat: _I can slice you open if I so choose._ "Perhaps I _will_ give you a job. I'll give you the hardest job in the palace, and work you until your last breath."

Sokka's stomach churns. He forces himself not to answer. The bird on the king's desk takes flight, circling above him like a vulture, until it finally lands on his shoulder. 

What Sokka does next is either the best or the stupidest thing he's ever done, and he blames it entirely on instinct.

He slaps the bird off his shoulder so hard it slams into the opposite wall.

The king's claws disappear instantly. _"You—!"_

The bird lets out a horrible, unearthly shriek, and then proceeds to _burst into fucking flames._

"You _fool!"_ the king screams, throwing Sokka aside as he hurtles to put out the fire. "Go!Leave!"

Sokka, however, is a Class-A Certified Idiot, so he yells, "I'm not going till you give me a job!"

"Fine, _fine!"_ the king roars, tearing a sheet of paper off his desk and hurling it in Sokka's general direction. "Take the job! Take it!"

Sokka grabs the paper out of the air and then immediately drops to his knees with his hands shoved over his ears, because holy _fuck_ he didn't think birds could even _make_ sounds like that. It's high and piercing and it grates on his ears, and the bird _just won't shut up._ The fire's spreading, too, crawling up the curtains and the walls like some kind of beast.

Finally, the king grabs the bird with one hand and a pitcher off his desk with the other, and he just fucking _dunks_ the bird in the pitcher. The bird's scream abruptly cuts off into a high whistling whine, and the fire flickers out, leaving the king's office charred and black.

The king fishes the bird back out of the pitcher, and it looks like shit, all bedraggled crimson feathers and dripping wet wings. It coughs, a tiny pathetic sound, and the king tosses it onto his desk.

"Uh," Sokka says, waving the piece of paper, "what is this, exactly?"

The king turns around, and his lip curls. He _clearly_ regrets giving Sokka the job, but Sokka gets the feeling he can't take it back, not now that he's said it out loud. Weird spirit rules and everything.

"It's your contract," the king spits, grabbing a brush and lobbing it at Sokka's head. "Sign."

Sokka doesn't even read the contract. He knows he should, but it's not like he has a choice to _not_ sign it, no matter what the conditions are. 

He writes his name: 索卡. The moment he's done, the contract shivers and slides out from under his hands. 

Sokka turns to see the paper in the king's hands. He doesn't even look at it; no, he looks at _Sokka,_ and his eyes are so glaringly cold Sokka winces.

"And your name is?"

"Sokka."

The Phoenix King smiles down at him. "No. Not anymore."

"Wait, what?" Sokka lurches forward. "What are you doing?"

The king holds his hand out over the contract, and, to his horror, Sokka watches the second character of his name literally float off the page. It rises in the air, and the king catches it with his hand.

"Your name is now Suo," the Phoenix King says. "Am I understood?"

Sokka nods, even though his internal monologue is a constant stream of _what the fuck_. "Yes, sir."

"Good," the king says, and then: "Kou, take him to the bathhouse."

Sokka starts and turns around. And yes, Kou's there, standing silently in the corner. There isn't a single hint of recognition in his eyes as he looks at Sokka.

"What's your name?"

"What?" Sokka blinks at him. "Sok—oh. It's Suo."

"Alright, Suo," Kou says, his face neutral. "Follow me."

As they make their way through the corridors, Kou doesn't say anything, so Suo doesn't either. The silence presses down on them, as heavy as any bag that Suo's ever had to carry. 

The elevator ride down is so awkward it's physically painful. Finally, Suo turns to Kou and says, "Kou, what—"

Kou cuts him off, gold eyes sliding sideways to look at him. "Don't talk to me. And address me as Master Kou."

And then he just...goes back to looking at the elevator doors. Leaving Suo with more questions than he had before.

That _asshole._

* * *

As Kou leads him down into the depths of the bathhouse, Suo has to stop himself from hunching his shoulders. Spirits gather at the balconies to peer down at him like he's some kind of specimen, and the feeling of all those eyes on him makes his skin itch.

By the time they reach what Suo assumes is some kind of main desk, they've amassed quite the crowd. Kou seems completely unbothered, but Suo just wants to curl up and cover his face.

He can't do that, though. That would be showing weakness. So he stands with his back straight and his chin held high as Kou explains to the man at the stall that yes, this is a human, and yes, he needs a job.

"I don't care if the king gets angry with us," the boy at the stall scoffs. He's got a stalk of grass in his mouth, which can't be comfortable to talk with. "We're not taking _humans."_

"He's already under contract," Kou says calmly, which causes complete and utter uproar. The crowd starts yelling in disbelief, someone screams something in a language Suo doesn't understand, and the boy with the grass slams his fist down on the table.

" _What?"_ he says shrilly. "The king put that _vermin_ under contract?"

"That vermin can hear you," Suo says loftily. "And he can work just as well as any spirit."

"We're not taking him in _our_ department," someone mutters. There's a general murmur of agreement. "He'll stink up the whole place."

"Three days of your food and my smell will be gone," Suo snaps, remembering what Kou told him about spirit food. For a moment, he thinks he sees warmth flash in Kou's carefully cold eyes, but it's gone before he can be sure. 

"If he doesn't work well, you can do what you wish." Kou waves a careless hand. "Boil him. Roast him. Have him for lunch." 

No one steps forward. Kou sighs through his nose. "Just get back to work." 

The crowd begins to disperse, still shooting Suo dirty looks, and Kou straightens. "Where's Toph?" Suo jerks up at the name.

"Hey!" He swivels around to see the girl herself leaning against the door. "Don't dump him on _me!"_

"You said you wanted an assistant," Kou replies, placing a hand between Suo's shoulder blades and pushing him forwards. "Now you have one."

The boy with the grass snickers. "Oh, that's _perfect._ Give the vermin to Toph, I'm sure she'll make him feel right at home."

Suo glowers at grass boy, but before he can do anything he'll regret there's a warm hand on his shoulder. "Suo, go with Toph," Kou says, his voice suddenly soft. "She'll take care of you."

The last few words are said too quietly for anyone but Suo to hear, and a different kind of warmth blooms in his chest. He almost turns around to look back at Kou, but then Toph's hand is on his elbow, tugging him away from the main desk.

"You owe me one, Kou," she grumbles, shepherding Suo into the hallway. She leads him through the palace in stony silence, which is bizarre when he compares it to the easy small talk that came earlier.

They turn the corner onto a balcony—a _real_ balcony, with a sliding screen door that opens out onto the city. They're scarily close to the Middle Ring, and Suo shudders when he looks down and sees the water.

Toph finally, _finally_ turns around, and immediately punches him in the arm.

"Ow!" Suo yelps, jumping back. "What was that for?"

"I can't believe you pulled it off!" Toph whisper-yells, grinning. It's such a change from ten seconds ago that Suo swears he gets whiplash. "You're a dumbass, you know that? I was worried. Wasn't kidding when I said I expected the king to kill you."

Suo blinks. "You were worried about me?"

She punches him again. "Of course I was! Now come on, let's get you some clothes."

She pulls him past a dorm with a closed door, pushing him into the next one over. "This is the boys' dorm," she says. "The one before, that was closed? That's the girls' dorm. I'll be there if you need any help, but Teo should be more than enough."

"Teo?" Suo asks, and Toph puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles, high and shrill.

 _"Teo!"_ she yells, loud enough that Suo winces. A boy enters the room, and Suo stares.

Teo's legs are bandaged together. He's sitting down in a strange—but _awesome—_ contraption that Suo's never seen before.

"Toph, you're going to wake up the whole palace," he says. "Hey. I'm Teo."

"Suo," Suo responds dazedly. "That machine is _super cool."_

Teo glances down at it, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, thanks?" He tries for a smile. "Obviously, I don't work in the baths—" he gestures at his legs. "—but if you need anything with, like, clothes or sleeping bags or food, you can come ask me. If I'm not here, I'll be in the boiler room."

"What are his sizes?" Toph asks. She's slid open the door to a cupboard filled with the red robes that Suo's come to associate with the palace staff. Teo eyeballs Suo and clicks his tongue.

"Huh. Go for...second-smallest."

"I'm not _that_ skinny," Suo protests, and Teo chuckles. 

"No, but you are pretty young," he points out. "Toph, you're one pile over."

"Oops." Toph moves her hand from one neatly stacked pile of clothes to the next. She pulls out a set of red robes, identical to the ones Teo's wearing. "Ta-daa! One set of robes for the scrawny human."

"I'm not _scrawny!"_

"Really? You sound scrawny."

Suo cuffs her over the back of the head. "Teo, tell her I'm not scrawny."

"He's super scrawny," Teo says, like a _traitor._ Toph snickers.

"Put on the clothes, Snoozles," she says. "Teo, could you set up a sleeping bag?"

Teo nods. "No problem." He wheels himself to the next room.

Suo changes into the robes with only minimal awkwardness. Having the only other person in the room not being able to see you helps.

It's only when he has to take them off that he remembers: he still has his sword and boomerang. Tui and La, he'd forgotten about them completely.

Toph taps her foot. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Suo says, tucking them into his old clothes. "Just—my weapons."

"You have _weapons?"_ Toph blanches. "Hide them. _Now."_

"I already did, they're in my clothes."

" _Good."_ She snatches up the stack of blue clothes, weapons and all, and stashes it in the corner of the cupboard. "Never, _ever_ let anyone know you entered this place with weapons. It would be the perfect excuse to kill you."

Suo gulps. "Um. Okay."

"The sleeping bag's all set up!' Teo yells, from the next room over. Toph pats him on the arm.

"Get some sleep, Suo," she says quietly. "The first night's always rough. I'll show you the ropes in the morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, Kou (寇/kòu) is the pinyin of the second character of Zuko's name, meaning 'bandit', 'robber', 'invader' etc. His name is written several different ways in the series, but I chose to write it the way it was written on his wanted poster. Likewise, Suo (索/suǒ) is the pinyin of the first character of Sokka's name, meaning 'demand', 'search', 'inquire' etc.  
> I was very, very tempted to name them Lee and Wang, but I decided it was probably best to stick to Spirited Away's version, where characters were taken from the original name.


	3. The Masked Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay.” Toph snaps the book shut. “Which spirits should you never piss off?”  
> “Middle spirits and higher spirits,” Suo recites, “because higher spirits are scary as fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might notice that the chapter count went up from five to six. that's because this chapter and the next were meant to be one thing, but then it ended up being 9000 words and i cut it in half.

Toph is tiny and rude and _awesome._ She teaches Suo the official basics—how to mop the floor, how to work the water, how to get a chip from the annoying grass boy at the front desk. She also teaches him the not-so-official basics—which baths to avoid, how to piss off grass boy, and which spirits will let him hide behind them if he gets in trouble.

“You’re assuming that I’m going to get in trouble in the first place,” he sniffs, wringing out a rag. Mopping the floor is probably his least favourite chore, if only because he sucks at it. “I resent that.”

Toph snorts. “Suo, please. With a temper like yours, you’re _definitely_ gonna get in trouble. You’re way too rude.”

“You’re ruder!”

“Only when I know I’m not gonna get eaten for it,” Toph says smugly. Suo feels the blood drain from his face.

“Is that an option?” he asks. “Is that a thing that happens?”

Toph dunks her rag in the bucket. “Oh, yeah. The plant spirits are harmless, don’t worry about them. The frog spirits are assholes, and they’ll probably rat you out to the king, but they won’t hurt you personally. It’s the bird spirits you’ve gotta watch out for. “

“Birds,” Suo repeats, doubtfully. “Like...ducks.”

“What, you don’t believe me? They’ll peck your corpse to pieces and leave you there to rot.” She wrings out her rag with more force than is strictly necessary. “The two most dangerous kinds of spirits are the ones that look like birds and the ones that look like humans.”

Suo leans away from her. “Like you?”

She barks out a laugh. “No, I’m just a sprite. The _proper_ spirits that look like humans—they’re called the high spirits. The only high spirits in this palace are the Phoenix King and his brood; everyone else is either a plant spirit, an animal spirit, or—” she gestures at herself. “—some kind of minor sprite.”

“Huh.” Suo thinks back to his visit to the Phoenix King. If Toph’s telling the truth, and he doesn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t, then he’d been in the presence of two of the most dangerous kinds of spirit in the entire palace.

“I’ll give you a rundown on the types of spirit later,” Toph says, scrubbing the floor. “Remind me to take you to the library after lunch.”

“The library?” Suo can’t help but shiver a little. Wan Shi Tong and his extendable head freak him out.

“The owl’s not that bad once you get used to him.” Toph sits back on her heels. “I mean, yeah, he’s a bird spirit, but he’s also, like. A nerd. Offer him new knowledge and he’s putty in your hands.”

“Huh.” Suo tries to imagine a vaguely owl-shaped puddle of goo, and then decides not to. “Okay, then. Library after lunch.”

* * *

Toph wasn't kidding when she said Wan Shi Tong loved knowledge.

It’s not even _useful_ knowledge. She just tells him all the latest gossip of the palace, and he nods along with one of his foxes standing at attention next to him. When Toph is done, he steps aside and bows his head. “You may pass.”

“Thanks,” Toph says, marching in with her hand on Suo’s arm. “Can I get him a book on spirits?”

“Certainly.”

She bows formally. “I thank you for your permission.”

Suo thinks of how Kou had said Aang and Katara needed to ask permission before they read the scrolls. He’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening now.

Toph pokes him in the side. “Hey, Snoozles.”

“Hm?”

“Read the book title to me.” She shoves a heavy leather-bound book in his arms, so suddenly he stumbles under its weight.

“Where did you _get_ this?” He hadn’t seen her reach out for a book. Besides, she’s _blind._ Did she just grab a random book off the shelf and hope it was the right one?

“Just read the title.”

Suo sighs and looks down. “The title is—” His mouth goes dry. “The title is _‘A Classification of Spirits’._ Toph, how did you find this?”

She grins. “Didn’t the owl bastard tell you? Spirits don’t need organisation. The books rearrange themselves for us.”

“Oh, okay,” Suo says. “Your books are sentient. That’s totally normal.”

“You’re in the spirit world now, Snoozles,” she says, snatching the book and slamming it down on a table that appears out of _nowhere._ “Get used to it.”

Suo sits down hesitantly. The rustling sound he’d heard when he came in the library yesterday is back, and he looks up to realise that it’s the sound of Wan Shi Tong turning pages.

“Snoozles. Hey.” Toph snaps her fingers. “Eyes on the page.”

Suo drops his gaze down to look at the book. It’s open on a page reading, ‘ _the lower spirits’._

“What’s it say?” Toph asks.

“The lower spirits.”

“Perfect,” Toph says, patting the book. “Okay, so. The book has pictures, right?” 

“Uh huh.” Suo glances down at the illustrations. There’s a picture of something that looks human, and a giant white thing that’s labelled ‘the radish spirit’, and a fox that looks just like one of Wan Shi Tong’s.

Toph claps her hands together. “Okay. Lesson’s started. Now, the lower spirits are just anyone who isn’t a higher spirit. Meaning: Heibai the panda spirit, these foxes, me. Like I said, I’m a sprite. So is Teo. So is Jet, the annoying guy with the grass in his mouth. Sprites are spirits of nature—like me, hello, I’m a mountain sprite.” She wiggles her toes. “You asked me how I navigate. The answer: seismic sense. The simplified version is that I feel the vibrations around me using earthbending, which—”

“You can _earthbend?”_ Suo blurts out. “But the benders all died out!”

She gives him a look that could wither crops. “All the _human_ benders, you mean. Who do you think the first benders were? The spirits, that’s who. I don’t know about the other bending types, but earthbending came from the badgermole spirits.”

“Wait, wait.” Suo’s head is spinning. “So bending...came from the spirits?”

Toph scoffs. “Dude, _everything_ the humans have came from the spirits. Even your shape.”

“Our _shape?”_

She nods. “The old gods made humans after their own image,” she says, sounding like she’s reciting it from a history book. “That’s why the higher spirits look like humans—the _real_ reason they look like that is because they look like the old gods, and it just so happens that humans do too.”

Suo buries his face in his hands. “My head hurts.”

Toph pats his shoulder. “Yeah, this can’t be easy. But you do need to learn your spirits so you don’t accidentally fuck up and die, so find a page labelled ‘the middle spirits’ and tell me what you see.”

The middle spirits, apparently, are the spirits that are more powerful than lower spirits, but too weak to be classified as higher spirits. They include, Toph says, the Painted Lady, who protects a river to the west; the Kemurikage, who haunted warlords back in the day with super creepy masks; Wan Shi Tong, who’s too powerful to be classified as a mere lower spirit like the rest of his animal companions.

“I thought spirits were just _spirits,”_ Suo complains, once they’ve finished the middle spirits. “No one told me they were this complicated.”

Toph laughs. “Oh, Snoozles. In the spirit world, _everything’s_ complicated.”

* * *

When they finally get to learning about the higher spirits, the sun is low in the sky and Suo is thoroughly creeped out.

Mostly because of what Toph tells him about the higher spirits she knows. There’s the Phoenix King, of course—but there’s also the Mother of Faces, and her son, Koh the Face-Stealer. Those two freak him out. The thought of someone being able to steal his face just because he made the tiniest expression...yeah, that does _not_ sit well.

The book doesn’t have any pictures of the higher spirits, and Suo doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

“Okay.” Toph snaps the book shut. “Which spirits should you never piss off?”

“Middle spirits and higher spirits,” Suo recites, “because higher spirits are scary as _fuck.”_

Toph laughs. “Snoozles, chill. I mean, yeah, higher spirits are scary, but you don’t really need to worry about them. The only higher spirits in this palace are the Phoenix King and his son.”

“He has a _son?”_ Suo splutters. He doesn’t know how babies are made in the Spirit World, but the thought of someone having _kids_ with the Phoenix King makes him nauseous.

Toph gives him a quizzical look. “Uh, yeah? You’ve already met him.”

“I have?” Suo feels a little faint. Had he pissed off a higher spirit by mistake? What if he—

“Dude, it’s Kou,” Toph says bluntly. “Kou’s the Phoenix King’s son.”

* * *

Suo crawls back into bed at the end of the day—well, the start of the day, since the sun’s rising. He’d been lucky—because it’s his first day, the spirits had been forbidden from giving him any customers to bathe. He and Toph had been delegated to tub-cleaning duty.

“You won’t be this lucky tomorrow,” Toph had warned him. “Jet _hates_ humans. He’ll dump the worst customer on you the second he gets.”

Suo sighs, pulling his covers up over his head. It’s scary, how easily he’s adjusted to sleeping during the day. Everyone else around him is already snoring.

The door slides open. 

Soft footsteps pad in over the sleeping bags: too light to be Toph, too deliberate to be anyone else. Suo holds his breath.

Kou crouches down next to him. Suo can feel his hand hovering above his shoulder, radiating warmth.

“Meet me by the library the first chance you get,” he says softly, and then he pulls away.

And just like that, he’s gone.

* * *

Suo can’t help but feel like it’s a trap.

Kou’s the Phoenix King’s _son._ After Toph had dropped that little nugget of information, Suo had bombarded her with questions: was there more than one Kou? Was he really the king's son? Did he have a mother?

Toph had replied with: no, yes, and nobody knows. Then she'd cuffed him over the head and said, "Kou's the king's son, get over it. Is it really that hard to undestand?"

Now that he thinks about it, Suo can see how the two are related: they have the same gold eyes, the same pale skin, the same dark hair. It seems spirit genetics work the same way humans’ do. Kou is his father’s son, through and through, which means Suo can’t trust him.

But Suo’s also an established idiot, so he goes to the library anyway.

Kou is waiting for him when he gets there, leaning on the wall. He's wearing his red palace robes, and there's a satchel slung over his shoulder. Suo eyes it warily; it's probably full of evil, Suo-killing weapons.

“Well?” Suo says brusquely. “What do you want?”

Kou rubs the back of his neck, and he actually looks _flustered._ “I wanted to—to show you something. But not here.” He holds out his hand.

Suo stares at it. “No. I’m not going with you.” He takes several steps backwards.

Kou’s hand falters. “What? But—”

“You didn’t tell me the Phoenix King was your _father,”_ Suo accuses.

Kou’s face hardens. “He’s not.”

“Bullshit,” Suo snaps. “Toph said—”

“He _was_ my father,” Kou says, and suddenly he looks a little lost, a little helpless, like he’s not entirely sure if he’s right. “A very long time ago. But not—not anymore.”

Suo looks at his face, and he can’t bring himself to disagree. There’s something about the way Kou is holding himself, hunched in and restless, like a little kid who’s just been caught stealing food in the middle of the night.

“Okay,” he says, and Kou’s eyes dart up to his face. “I believe you.”

Kou stares at him a moment longer, and Suo realises how wrong he was when he thought Kou and the king had the same eyes. They’re both gold, but the king’s eyes are cold as ice—Kou’s are unflinchingly warm.

Kou offers his hand again, and this time Suo takes it.

* * *

Kou takes him to an underground zoo.

It’s horrible. The animals pace in stone cages, snarling and baring their teeth. There are tigers, pigs, saber-moose-lions, every different type of bear that Suo can think of. 

Kou leads him to the back of the zoo, the only part that doesn’t have bars around the enclosure. As Suo gets closer, he sees why: it’s a pool full of koi fish.

Literally. The pool is way too small, and the fish are packed to the brim. They barely have space to move.

Kou reaches into the pool and pulls out a black fish. It squirms in his grasp, but he holds fast, pulling a teapot from his satchel and dropping it in.

He offers the teapot to Suo. “Your sister.”

“My—?”

Kou nods. “Your sister.”

Suo’s mouth goes dry as he takes the teapot and looks in. The black koi fish— _Katara_ —swims around, looking vaguely confused.

“Oh, Katara,” he whispers, clutching the teapot close to his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

She flicks her fins.

“I promise I’ll get you out,” he tells her. “You and Aang. I’ll get you out and back to normal.”

Katara blows a bubble at him, and he sighs. 

“Back in the pond?” Kou asks, and he nods.

“Back in the pond,” he says miserably, crouching down and tipping the teapot upside down. Katara goes splashing into the water to land on the other fish.

“Don’t forget what she looks like,” Kou warns. Suo trains his eyes on his sister, memorising every scale, every line, every patch of colour.

“Where’s Aang?” he asks. Kou sighs and beckons. 

“This way,” he says, turning right. Suo follows him into a tunnel, the dread in his stomach growing by the second.

Kou finally stops next to a cage that’s set in the tunnel wall, just above the ground. Suo kneels down to look in, and his stomach flips.

“This is—” he starts, and then finds he can’t say any more. Kou nods grimly.

“It’s cruel,” he says, sitting down cross-legged in front of the cage. “They always keep the airbenders where they can’t see the sky.”

Inside the cage are a dozen flying lemurs. They’re all hunched over and shivering, eyes glazed over, like they’re living a waking nightmare.

“They’re all airbenders?” Suo asks. “I thought they all—”

“Went extinct,” Kou finishes. “Yes. See, the thing is, the punishment fits the crime. Cause and effect. Not everyone here is an airbender, but they _did_ try to take the airbending scrolls. Some are benders. Some are scholars. Some are pirates.”

Suo stares at the lemurs. He can’t tell which one is Aang; there are three lemurs with arrow markings. “So...if they tried to take the airbending scrolls, they turn into flying lemurs. If they take a waterbending scroll, they turn into fish.”

“Correct.” Kou extends a hand through the bars, sparks flickering at his fingertips, and the lemurs cringe away. “Earthbending scrolls turn you into a mole. Firebending scrolls turn you into a snake. And, well…” He lifts his eyes to the tunnel entrance, where the growls of the other animals come floating in. “Stealing isn’t the only crime this city will punish you for.”

Suo’s stomach swoops. “You mean—all those animals—?”

“They’re all people,” Kou confirms, withdrawing his hand. He points to a lemur in the far left corner. “That one’s your friend. Make sure you know what he looks like.”

Suo stares at the lemur. There’s nothing really identifiable about it, but he memorises him anyway.

“Hang on, Aang,” he says. His friend doesn’t respond. “Just a little longer, okay? Then you’ll be back.”

He follows Kou out of the tunnel, past the fish pond, past the other prisoners. Suo looks at them with new eyes, now; not animals, but people, all trapped in here for gods know how long.

Kou leads him to a garden, where a pond full of turtleducks lies hidden behind the bushes. Suo eyes the pond warily.

“Are those…?”

Kou laughs quietly, and Suo’s heart misses a beat. “No. I assure you, these are regular turtleducks.”

He sits next to the pond and beckons for Suo to come down with him. Suo obliges, and Kou pulls out a handful of wrapped rice dumplings from his satchel.

“Eat,” he says, holding out his hand, and Suo has a vivid flashback to seeing Kou crouched on the wall of the Middle Ring, his hands full of red berries. He smiles faintly and takes a dumpling.

It tastes...good. Suo takes another bite, and another, and it takes him a few moments to realise that the salt he’s tasting isn’t coming from the dumpling.

He doesn’t try to wipe away the tears. He just finishes the dumpling, nice and slow, and then turns and presses his face into Kou’s shoulder.

Fuck, he’s _scared._ Seeing Aang and Katara again really drove the reality home—it’s up to him to get them back to normal, or they’ll be stuck in that zoo forever. _He’ll_ be stuck in the palace forever. Tui and La, he doesn’t even know if he can die like this. Can he die? Will he age? Is he going to be stuck at fifteen years old for the rest of his life?

Kou doesn’t pull away or complain that Suo’s getting snot all over his shirt. He wraps an arm around Suo’s shoulders, and the warmth makes Suo feel like he’s been covered in blankets.

“Thank you,” he rasps quietly, when the tears have come to a stop and he’s only hiccuping once every few minutes. “I...it was good to see them.”

Kou hums, and Suo feels the vibrations from the top of his head to the ends of his feet. “Now you know that you can just grab them and run away at sunrise.”

Suo snorts. “Oh, yeah, that’d go over well. I’d run into some guy on the road and be like, ‘Hi, I’m Suo! The koi fish is my sister and the lemur’s my best friend. What’s your name?’”

Kou goes still. Suo frowns. He can’t see Kou’s face like this, but he gets the feeling it’s not good. “Kou? You good?”

“Your name’s not Suo.”

“Huh?”

“Your name’s not Suo,” Kou repeats, his voice hard. 

“What are you talking about? Of course it is.” Suo pulls back to stare at Kou. “You feeling okay, buddy?”

Kou reaches inside his satchel and pulls out a mess of blue. He shoves it in Suo’s lap.

Suo stares down at the bundle. “My clothes?”

“And your weapons,” Kou adds, sliding Suo’s boomerang out of the folds of his tunic. “Here.”

He presses it into Suo’s hand, turning it over.

Suo’s heart drops. 

There, carved on the bottom of the boomerang, is a name: _SOKKA._

“Oh, gods,” he whispers, running a finger over it. “Oh my—I forgot my own name.” He looks up at Kou wildly. “I forgot my own name! How could I do that? How could I—it’s my _name!”_

Kou watches him with a resigned look on his face. “That’s what happens when you sign a contract with the king. He—” he falters, then pushes on. “He takes your name. Remember, when he stole the second character off your signature?”

Sokka nods. He clutches the boomerang and tells himself, _Sokka. Sokka. My name is Sokka._

“He literally stole it,” Kou says. “He took your name from you. Thankfully, you had something to help you remember.” He nods at the boomerang. “Most people in the palace aren’t that lucky.”

Sokka swallows. “Is...is that what happened to you?”

Kou nods, his hand drifting up to touch the scar on his face. “The king...he took a lot from me. My eye. My skin. My title.” He drops his gaze to the floor. “My name.”

“But he’s your _father,”_ Sokka whispers. Kou’s eyes snap up, and he amends: “Or he used to be. How could he—?”

Kou holds up his hand. “I got lucky,” he says darkly. “Ozai has done much worse to people less fortunate than me.”

The actual name— _Ozai_ —jolts Sokka down to his core. It’s only two characters, two syllables, but it carries so much weight.

“I had a name,” Kou says, folding his arms over his knees. “There was another character. I don’t know if it came before or after Kou, much less what it was.”

“I’m sorry,” Sokka says, because it’s all he _can_ say. 

“Don’t be,” Kou answers, and they leave it at that.

* * *

Kou takes him back to the bridge, which has morphed back into a stone courtyard in daylight. 

“You should go rest,” he says. “You have to work tonight.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka says, but he’s reluctant to let Kou go. “So I’ll, uh—see you around?”

“I’ll see you around,” Kou agrees, then hesitates. Sokka looks at him, waiting for him to do whatever it is he wants to do.

Kou leans forward and—

He kisses Sokka on the cheek.

It’s short and chaste and barely more than a peck, but Sokka’s entire face heats up. _“Uh,”_ he says, and then, because he’s an idiot: “Thank you?”

Kou flushes red. “You’re welcome.”

 _Oh my gods,_ Sokka thinks, a little hysterically. _He’s just as much an idiot as I am._

Kou ducks his head, still blushing, and makes his way to the garden gate, disappearing from view. Sokka watches him go, then raises a hand to his burning cheek.

Huh, he thinks to himself. Spirit kisses are actually kinda nice.

He turns to start walking back to the dorms, because he _does_ have work tonight and he needs to rest, but something makes him look over his shoulder.

There’s something in the sky, something red and gleaming and serpentine. Sokka squints at it, trying to make it out—

It’s a fucking dragon, and Sokka knows, instinctively, that the dragon is Kou.

Okay. Okay. So he just got kissed by a dragon.

...He really can’t take much more of this. The spirit world is fucking _weird._

* * *

Work that night is _hectic._

He starts with normal work: cleaning the floors. It’s hard, but it’s nothing he can’t do. The worst part is the fact that it leaves him with an aching back, like he’s an eighty-year-old man.

He drags a tub of dirty water over to the door and slides it open. He tips it over, watching the water go splashing down, and—

Holy _fuck_ there’s someone there. 

Sokka yelps and jumps back, dropping the tub as he does so. There’s a spirit standing in the garden, staring at him.

Well—can it really be _staring_ at him if there’s a mask over its face?

He crouches down again, slowly. The tub’s tumbled out of reach, and he’ll have to step out into the rain if he wants to get it.

“Hello,” he says cautiously. The spirit doesn’t so much as twitch. And damn, that mask is _creepy_ —it’s pale grey, one half darker than the other. The lighter half—the left half—is decorated with swirling cloud designs, and the darker half has a black circle where the right eye would be. Apart from that, the mask doesn’t seem to have any eye or mouth holes.

And, suddenly, Sokka realises he recognises it.

“You’re a Kemurikage,” he says, remembering what Toph had told him about the spirits. “You, uh—you haunted warlords, and—”

The spirit shakes its head.

“No?” Sokka asks. “No, you didn’t haunt warlords or no, you’re not Kemurikage?”

The spirit holds up two fingers and shakes its head again: _no to both questions._

“Huh,” Sokka says. “So you’re not Kemurikage, but you wear a Kemurikage mask. Um. Sure. I can roll with that.”

The spirit moves forward. There’s no better way to describe it: it just _moves,_ gliding over the earth. Sokka looks down at its feet, because it’s wearing palace robes, which include pants and boots, and he watches—its feet never come off the ground. It slides them forward, but never steps.

The spirit bends down to pick up the tub, and black hair tumbles forward to hang over its face. Sokka realises with a start that it’s _human_ —or, at least, it looks like it. A sprite, then, because he doubts a high spirit would come _here_ without some kind of grand fanfare.

The spirit straightens and offers him the tub. He takes it.

“Thanks,” he says. “You wanna come in? It’s pouring out here.” He gestures at the rain. “You must be cold. Freezing.”

The spirit tilts its head. Sokka shrugs. 

“Seriously, just come in,” he says, standing. “You can have a bath, if you have money to pay—”

 _“Suo!”_ Toph bellows from inside, and he jumps. “Get in here!”

“Sorry,” he tells the spirit. “I gotta go. I’ll leave the door open for you, okay?”

He takes the tub and runs inside. And, true to his word, the door stays open.

Sokka doesn’t see it, but the spirit steps inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀👀  
> (me, writing 13000 words in one day? it's more likely than you think.)  
> (also, for those who haven't read the comics: the kemurikage are an actual thing in the avatarverse! go check out the wiki page if you want to know what the mask looks like.)


	4. The Face-Stealer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Suo," Toph says slowly, her hands held up in front of her, "don't move your face."  
> "What?"  
> "Don't move your face," she repeats, "unless you want to lose it."

Sokka hadn’t realised just how out of the way tub-cleaning duty was until he and Toph were taken off it. Suddenly, they’re ducking to avoid frog spirits lugging buckets of warm water, passing cubicles with sprites filling up the tubs.

“The big tub,” Toph grumbles. “They gave us the _big tub.”_

“Uh,” Sokka says. “You mean, instead of the small tub?”

“The big tub is _frog work,”_ she spits, rolling up her sleeves. “But we can’t argue with the king’s orders. If he says the big tub, we have to do the big tub.”

“Sorry,” Sokka says, rubbing the back of his neck. “You only have to do this because you got stuck with me.”

She waves him off. “Eh, it’s not your fault. Well, no, it kind of is, but it’s not like you asked to be paired with me. The _real_ asshole here is—” she points up towards the ceiling instead of saying a name. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Sokka agrees, as they turn into a cubicle. “I do— _woah.”_

The big tub lives up to its name. It’s _giant,_ taller than Sokka himself, and it’s also dirty as hell.

“Those _jerks,”_ Toph says hotly as she steps onto the grass-covered floor. “They haven’t cleaned this tub in months.”

“That,” Sokka says, “is gross.”

“Yep.” Toph pinches her nose. “ _Real_ gross.”

They get to work, Sokka sweeping away mounds of grass while Toph earthbends the loose dirt into a pile. The smell is horrible; Sokka gags more than once, and judging from the perpetual crinkle of Toph’s nose, she isn’t faring any better. When the grass is all gone, they actually have to get _in_ the tub, which is disgusting and horrible and _Aang, Katara, I hope you know the kind of things I do for you,_ because he has to get up real close and personal with the sludge caked on the walls.

“We only use this tub for the _super_ dirty customers,” Toph explains as she earthbends some of the top layers away. The bottom layers are too hard for her to be able to pry away with bending alone, but being able to use bending at all is better than nothing. “It’s disgusting. No one’s used it in ages.”

“Yeah, I can see why,” Sokka snipes. He wants to pinch his nose, but his hand is dirty and gross, so he decides against it. 

“Toph, Suo!” A frog spirit raps on the cubicle wall. “You’ve got a few guests coming. Get ready.”

“What?” Toph throws down her sponge. “Come _on!_ This has gotta be some kind of harassment. I’m lodging a complaint.”

“Uh, Toph?” Teo peeks his head around the corner, which is _weird,_ because he never comes down to the bathhouse. “He’s not lying. There’s a _really_ big customer headed our way.He’s almost at the end of the Middle Ring.”

Toph sighs. “Okay, fine.” She turns to Sokka, hands on her hips. “Suo, go get an herbal soak token from Jet. He’ll be an asshole about it, but you _gotta_ get the herbal soak. It’s the only one strong enough to get all this gunk off.”

“Uh, sure.” He clambers out of the tub. “So, just one herbal soak token?”

“One herbal soak token,” Toph confirms. “And be quick.”

“Right.” He sets off down the corridors, ignoring the whispers and giggles sent his way. Jet. Damn it, he _hates_ talking to Jet.

He reaches the counter and raps on it, careful not to wake the white weasel that sleeps curled up next to the tokens. Jet turns and scowls down at him. “What?”

“I need an herbal soak token.”

“Get lost,” Jet says, chewing on his grass. “I’m not wasting a token on you.”

“Dude, come on.” Sokka spreads his hands. “I need it. We gotta clean the big tub.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Jet says airily, handing a token to a passing sprite without even looking at her. “I think it’s fitting. The dirtiest tub for the dirtiest worker, hm?”

Sokka clenches his fists. “Just give me the token, Jet.”

"You're not getting one," Jet says, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m not giving you a token ‘cause you’re too lazy to scrub it yourself. People work _hard_ in this palace, y’know?”

And, just like that, he turns to the nearest customer, a sunny smile on his face. Ignoring Sokka.

Sokka grits his teeth. He’s considering just grabbing a token and praying that it’s the right one, but before he can do that a spirit materialises out of thin air.

Sokka’s jaw drops. It’s the spirit from before, the one with the mask. Jet’s back is turned to it, and he doesn’t see it as it nods at Sokka.

Sokka nods back. Jet narrows his eyes at him and turns to the spirit, but the spirit fades away before he sees it.

The weasel coughs, suddenly, and Sokka takes a step back as a puff of fire comes out of its mouth. Jet doesn’t seem concerned; he reaches out and pulls a piece of paper from the weasel’s mouth, scanning it. 

He crumples up the paper and feeds it back to the weasel. “Tell the king that—hey! What the—!”

A token rises out of the box of its own accord. Jet snatches for it, but it darts out of the way and lands squarely in Sokka’s outstretched hands. 

He grins. “Thanks, Jet!”

“What—no— _get back here!”_

Sokka laughs to himself as he runs back to Toph. Whoever that spirit is, he’s going to have to thank them.

* * *

“Damn,” Toph says approvingly as he hands her the token. “This is, like, top quality. Nice going, Snoozles. How’d you get Jet to give you such a good one?”

Sokka coughs. “Uh. Charm?”

She snorts, slamming her fist into the wall. One of the boards swings open, revealing a string with a clip on the end.

She hands him the token. “Clip it on, then tug it once.”

He obliges. The token goes zooming up the shaft in the wall, and Toph shuts the door.

“It goes straight to Jeong Jeong,” she explains. “The boiler man. He’ll send us our water any minute.”

As if on cue, one of the wall boards starts lowering. It’s really more of a channel than anything else: long and rectangular, with a hollow carved in the middle. It comes to a stop at a perfect slope, with the end jutting out above the tub. A rope dangles down from it, and Toph points.

“You pull on the rope to start the water,” she says. “Go ahead, give it a try.”

Sokka climbs up the tub and pulls on the rope. It’s a lot easier than he expected, and he goes sliding down the edge of the tub. Toph snickers.

“Nice,” she says, her voice barely audible over the sudden rushing of water. Sokka looks up to see a steady stream of dull green water coming down the channel, filling up the tub way quicker than he thought it would. It smells like herbs and spices, and he pinches his nose; it reminds him of a spa house they’d once passed in an Earth Kingdom town.

“What’s _in_ this?” he asks, peering down at the water. Toph shrugs.

“Dried wormsalt. It’s supposed to be good for you.” She makes a face. “Tug it again to make the water stop. I’ll go get us some food.”

“Cool,” he says, jumping down from the tub. Toph strolls out, leaving him alone in the room.

He rolls his shoulders and glances up at the tub. The water must really be hot; there’s already clouds of steam rising from it. 

It won’t be full anytime soon, so Sokka turns away from the tub and—and nearly _jumps out of his skin._

“Holy—”

The masked spirit is standing in the corner like a total _creep._ Sokka’s starting to feel like he’s got a stalker. 

“Uh, hi?” He backs up against the tub. The spirit doesn’t say anything.

“Oh!” Sokka looks up at the water. “Thanks for the token, by the way. Really appreciate it.”

The spirit moves forward. Sokka swallows and flattens himself against the tub.

“The bath’s not ready yet,” he says, on the off-chance that the spirit just really, _really_ wants a bath. “So you’ll have to wait if—”

The spirit holds out its hands, and Sokka _stares._

There’s at least a dozen tokens there, gleaming red and yellow and black. The spirit lifts its hands, and they rattle against each other. Sokka swallows.

“No, uh—I don’t need them, thanks,” he says. The water’s getting louder; it must be almost full by now. “Seriously, thanks, but could you go put them—”

The tokens go clattering to the floor, and suddenly the spirit’s hands are on his _face._ Sokka lets out a high-pitched yelp, because its fingers are _freezing._

The spirit raises one finger and traces a circle on Sokka’s cheek. Sokka leans away from the touch, but its other hand holds him fast.

“Uh, sir—ma’am—spirit—I _really_ need to stop the water,” he says desperately. “So if you could please just let me go—”

The spirit jabs their finger into the middle of the circle and tilts its head at him, like that should mean something. A trickle of warm water reaches Sokka’s back.

“I don’t know what you _mean!”_ he bursts out, frustrated. “Now please just let me stop the—”

The spirit traces the circle again, then raises their hand to the bottom of their mask. To where the mouth would be, if the mask had a mouth.

“Cheek...mouth?” Sokka’s brain whirs. “Wait. You—”

Heat rises in his cheeks. The spirit’s tracing the exact same spot where Kou kissed him earlier. “Look, I don’t know how you know that, but I _really_ have to stop the water.” It’s flowing over the sides of the tub now, pooling on the floor around them.

This time, when he shakes free, the spirit lets him go. He turns around and starts trying to climb the tub, but turns out—surprise surprise—it’s hard to climb a slippery surface when there’s a stream of water literally fighting against you. 

He gets there in the end, pulling the rope and stopping the water. When he turns around, there’s a shallow layer of water on the floor, a dozen red tokens floating on it, and the masked spirit is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The palace is in uproar. Everyone’s running around and yelling. Well—everyone’s running around and yelling, even more than they usually do.

“Suo!” someone yells, and he flinches. “The king wants to see you!”

Sokka’s, like, ninety-percent sure he’s going to die.

* * *

He doesn’t die.

No, the king just wants him to serve a stink spirit. A _really big_ stink spirit, apparently, which means they’ll have to use the big tub.

Sokka stands behind the king, hands folded, and watches as a dark mass approaches over the bridge. Some of the animal spirits are already cringing at the smell. Sokka, with his measly human nose, can’t smell anything.

And then he does.

For the love of all he holds holy, the smell is _terrible._ It makes his sense of smell want to shrivel up and die. It worms its way up his nose and down his throat, and Sokka actually, physically gags. By the time the stink spirit comes into view, he’s about a hairs’ breadth away from keeling over.

Teo nudges him. “Don’t be rude,” he mutters, as the stink spirit pushes through the doorway, purple oil oozing from its skin. “Act like you can’t smell anything.”

“How could I _not_ smell that?” Sokka whispers back furiously. Teo shakes his head and puts a finger to his lips.

The king nods at the stink spirit, his face miraculously neutral. “Good evening, fellow spirit. Have you come to enjoy my baths?”

The stink spirit is a massive, slimy thing, mud—or something that _looks_ like mud—covering every inch of it. It extends one dark brown limb, sludge dripping off it, and Sokka thinks he sees something gleam.

“Suo, take his money,” the king orders. Sokka does his best not to wince as he holds out his hands.

The stink spirit deposits its money with a wet _splat,_ and a shiver runs down Sokka’s entire body and back up again. 

“This way, sir,” he squeaks, and forces himself to turn around, wrenching his feet free from the mud that’s covered the whole entry area. He wades through to the bathing pools, and the stink spirit follows him, leaving a murky purple-and-brown trail of oil and slurry.

Sokka’s nose is never going to be the same again. 

He shows the spirit to the big tub and then immediately flees to the opposite wall, picking up the red tokens the masked spirit had left behind. He clutches the tokens to his chest and backs into the corner, wincing as the stink spirit climbs up the tub with dozens of tiny, stubby legs. 

The spirit tips headfirst into the water with an almighty splash, and a wave of brown water crashes over the edge of the tub. Sokka yelps and throws up his hands to protect his face.

The water drenches him from head to foot. He looks up to see the tub covered in a fresh coating of mud, and the stink spirit half submerged in it. The spirit turns to look at him and makes a low, bellowing sound.

“You...want more water?” he tries, and the spirit makes a sound that could be affirmation. Sokka groans. The shaft for the tokens is all the way on the other side of the room; he’s going to have to wade through waist-deep mud to get there.

Well. The customer is always right, and everything.

He makes it to the shaft, getting completely covered in thick brown mud as he does so, and bangs his fist against the wall. It swings open and hits him in the face— _rude_ —and he fumbles blindly for one of the masked spirit’s tokens.

The first one slips out of his grip and falls into the depths of the shaft. The second one squeezes right out of his hand when he holds it too hard and smacks him in the face, then lands in the mud. The third one he manages to clip on, and he sends it up with a tug on the rope.

With a groan, the water channel begins to lower. Sokka slams the shaft door shut and starts struggling towards the tub.

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be a waterbender. That way he could’ve just bended his way out of this mess.

The mud actually works to his advantage when he’s climbing the tub. It’s thick enough that his feet stick in it rather than slipping, and he manages to get to the lip of the tub in record time.

The stink spirit opens its mouth, and Sokka nearly falls down at the sheer stench that comes out. Instead, he reaches out and takes hold of the rope with muddy hands, then pulls.

...Turns out the mud is _not_ working to his advantage, seeing as he immediately slips and falls in the tub.

He shut his eyes and clamps his mouth shut. The muddy water swirls around him. Tui and La, this has _got_ to be the most disgusting thing he’s ever done. 

Dimly, he’s aware of warm water seeping into the tub. So he’d managed to pull the rope, then; that’s good. 

Something digs into the mud underneath him and scoops him out of the water. He’s met with a stream of warm water to the face, leaving him coughing and spluttering with a mouth that tastes like a spa bath.

He blinks open his eyes and stares up at the spirit. It’s nothing more than a dark blob within a cocoon of water. The spirit moves him down to its side, tilting its limb so Sokka stumbles forwards.

Sokka looks up at the spirit. “What do you want me to do?”

The spirit pokes him in the back, and he falls face-first into the rushing water.

* * *

Sokka’s not a waterbender.

This is a pretty important part of his personality. Katara’s a waterbender, but he definitely isn’t. 

Sokka’s not a waterbender, which means that he can’t do anything to help him see underwater.

So instead, he squeezes his eyes shut and waves his hand around, hoping to find whatever it is the spirit wants him to find. His hand feels like it's being boiled in a pot like a lobster-crab, but he reaches out further—further—

His fingers catch on something smooth and hard and rounded, and he grabs onto it. It’s embedded in the spirit’s side; when he tries to tug it out, it holds fast.

Sokka leans back, and his head breaks the surface of the water. He gasps for air, his fingers still firmly wrapped around the thing in the spirit’s side.

“Suo!” 

He turns his head. Toph’s standing in the doorway, water up to her ankles, a rag tied around her face. She makes a pushing motion with her hand, and the mud clears a path from her to the tub. “Suo, where are you?”

“I’m over here!” he calls back.

“Wait there!” She starts marching down her makeshift path. “I’ll come get you— _don’t move!_ He might hurt you—”

“There’s something stuck in his side!” Sokka yells, and Toph stops in her tracks. “I think it’s a—a shield, or something!”

“A _shield?”_ Toph looks skeptical. “That’s not—”

“Take it out.”

Sokka jumps and looks up. The king is leaning over the railing of a balcony above them, his face darkly pensive.

“What?”

“Take it out,” the king repeats, his eyes narrowing. “That’s an order.”

“I—okay.” Sokka reaches out for the spirit again. He grabs hold of the shield with both hands and _pulls._

It makes a wet kind of sucking sound, but it doesn’t come out. Sokka grits his teeth and pulls again.

The shield pops out with a sound like a cork being pulled out of a bottle. Sokka stares at it—it’s not a shield at all. It’s—

“A mask?” he says out loud, turning it this way and that. But it’s undeniably a theatre mask, a grinning blue demon face with white fangs.

Toph makes a face. “A _mask?_ Why is there a mask in there?”

“Hell if I know,” Sokka says. “Here, hold this.”

He shoves the mask in Toph’s hands, ignoring her indignant splutter. There’s some kind of string attached to it, like a fishing line, and it still leads into the spirit.

“I think—” He swallows. “I think there’s _more.”_

 _“More?”_ Toph raises her brows. “What, you think this spirit’s some kind of theatre nerd?”

“Don’t know. Maybe. Stand back.”

He grabs hold of the line and tugs. There’s a squelching noise from somewhere inside the water, and both he and Toph wince.

“That,” Toph says, “is _disgusting.”_

“Tell me about it.” He tugs again, and this time a muddy oval comes out. He wipes off some of the sludge, and lo and behold—another mask.

“Ha!” He dumps it on top of the one in Toph’s arms. “Okay, hold on. I think if we just—”

He yanks on the line and another mask comes out, much easier than the others. Another tug, another mask, and then—

“Get _down!”_ Toph tackles him, and they both go flying, landing with a splash. Behind them, there's a deafening clatter, like clay plates being thrown in a bag and tossed into a cart. Sokka coughs, looking up to see—

A veritable mountain of masks, all dirty and cluttered and piled on top of each other. He gapes. It’s not only masks; there are things like scarves and shawls and bandannas, too, but it’s mostly masks.

The spirit lets out a low hiss of satisfaction. Sokka realises with a jolt that the water’s still flowing—he crawls up to stand on the lip of the tub and pulls the rope. 

A blast of steam hits him in the face, so intense he almost falls off the tub. Something shoots out of the water and wraps around his waist, pulling him back up.

He looks down and suppresses a scream. It’s a fucking— _scorpion tail,_ long and sinuous and shiny. The stinger presses into his stomach, just below his navel, and he gulps.

A ripple catches his eye. He looks up.

The tail’s owner begins to rise from the water.

* * *

Whoever this spirit is, they’re _huge._ Sokka can feel the blood draining from his face as a massive black shell breaks the surface, water streaming off it in rivulets. It’s followed by dull yellow spines that Sokka belatedly realises are _legs_ —they grip the sides of the tub and heave the rest of the spirit out of the water.

The stinger wrapped around his waist moves, then, and nudges his hands open. Sokka blinks and looks down. He’s holding a dull green ball, perfectly spherical. It’s got a weird texture to it, a bit like crumbly seal-tofu.

The spirit lifts its face out of the water. Its head is half-hooded by a gleaming black carapace, and it looks a bit like an eye, pinched at either end with the face in the middle. That face is startlingly human: a young man, with brown hair and grey eyes.

Sokka holds up the ball. “What is this?”

“My payment,” the spirit says smoothly, and Toph sucks in a breath when she hears his voice. The mud around them trembles as if in response.

Sokka turns to her, tucking the ball into his pocket. “What’s up?”

“Suo," Toph says slowly, her hands held up in front of her, "don't move your face."

"What?"

 _"Don't move your face,"_ she repeats, "unless you want to lose it."

A chill goes down Sokka’s spine. The spirit chuckles, twining around a roofing beam and lowering itself to look at him face-to-face.

Sokka turns to stare the spirit in the eyes. “Who are you?” he asks, though he has a feeling he already knows the answer.

The spirit smiles, and its whole head blinks. Its face changes to that of a moon-white Noh mask, with red lips and grey circles round its eyes. 

“I am Koh,” he says. “The Face-Stealer.”

* * *

Sokka stares straight ahead at the wall. It’s hard to do that when there’s a giant insectoid monster crouching in front of his face, but he manages.

“The Face-Stealer,” he says. “Right.”

“Yes,” Koh agrees, blinking the Noh mask away. It’s replaced by a baboon face, mouth open wide. “And you, Suo, are human.”

He extends a set of claws, coming to rest a hairs’ breadth away from Sokka’s skin. Almost touching, but not quite. “It has been a long time since I added a human’s face to my collection. Much longer since a human _child’s.”_

Sokka bristles, but his face remains carefully neutral. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer.”

“Will I?” Koh muses. His claw traces a circle above Sokka’s cheek—in the exact same pattern as the masked spirit had before. “I sense someone on you. Here, recently. The one that got away.”

“Cool,” Sokka says, but his heart’s about to beat out of his chest. “You’ve had your bath. You paid. Isn’t that normally when you’re meant to leave?”

Koh chuckles. “Oh, Suo.” His claws tighten. “I _never_ leave.”

He moves, his neck extending, his face blinking to that of a wooden theatre mask. “Who was it?” he croons, touching his claw to Sokka’s cheek. “Do you know? She is the one who did _this_ to me.” He nods at the masks littering the floor. “I do not know her name. But I know her face.”

Sokka’ skin feels like it’s being attacked by ants. He resists the urge to even glance in Koh’s direction.

Finally, _finally,_ Koh draws back.

“I’m impressed,” he says silkily, switching back to the Noh mask. “You haven’t given in.” He turns to sneer at the masks on the floor. “And I suppose I do have you to thank for getting rid of _this.”_

“Does that mean you’re going to go?” Sokka’s heart thuds.

“Yes,” Koh says, stretching up to unwind from the roofing beam. “But that does not mean I won’t return.”

He flashes Sokka a toothy grin and dives into the bath.

The water bursts up and out of the tub in a giant murky column. In the centre is Koh, spiralling like a serpent. He funnels the water to a point, then breaks free from it, leaving it to crash back to earth in a blue-grey tidal wave.

Sokka barely manages to keep himself from drowning. By the time he emerges from the water, coughing and spluttering, masks floating all around him, Koh the Face-Stealer is nothing but a blot on the Ba Sing Se skyline. 

Sokka exhales and makes his way over to Toph, who’s standing over by the wall and absolutely soaked. “Well,” he says, “that happened.”

Toph punches him. _“Idiot!”_ she yells. “Next time, you wait for me before you serve any customers, got it? Damn it, Suo, you could’ve lost your face!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” he says, and Toph punches him again. 

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but she’s cut off by a yell from behind.

_“Gold!”_

Jet pushes Toph out of the way and practically dives headfirst into the water. Sokka looks down, and—yes, there are pieces of gold glittering in the floorboards and on the masks, tucked among the debris littering the floor.

All around them, spirits start gasping and dropping to their knees. Toph does, too, seeking out the nuggets with her earthbending.

Sokka edges away from the gold frenzy. He looks around, searching for someone who isn’t on their hands and knees, and he spots the masked spirit at the edge of the crowd. The spirit looks at him, then fades from view.

Sokka shudders. As Jet holds up a pouch of gold with a triumphant, “Sake’s on me!”, he decides it’s time to return to the dorms.

* * *

Toph joins him out on the balcony later, when the celebrations have died down a little. She sets a plate of dumplings down and plops down next to him, setting her chin on the railing.

“You did good, Snoozles,” she says, kicking her legs out in the open air. “The Face-Stealer’s not a good spirit, but he is a rich one. Everyone’s gotten drunk out of their minds. Except the waterbenders. They got stuck with the job of draining the water.”

“You have waterbenders?” He thinks of Katara, and how excited she would be to learn that Ba Sing Se really _was_ a city of benders, even though the benders weren’t human. He silently marks up a tally in his head— _Katara: 1, Sokka: 0._

Toph points at herself. “Uh, hello? Earthbender here. We’ve got all types of benders in the palace.”

“Right, right. Sorry, I’m just not used to it.”

“Toph, Suo! Lights out!” Teo yells. Toph throws him a thumbs-up, and the lantern light behind them abruptly fizzles out.

With the loss of the lantern, the moonlight grows brighter. Sokka leans back on his hands, staring out at the city. Beneath them, a boat crosses the Middle Ring. It’s strung up with dozens of bright lights, but the water reflects none of them.

“It’s beautiful,” Sokka says quietly. And it is, really; he knows the city is nothing more than a glorified prison for him, but it’s still beautiful. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Toph replies, taking a bite out of her dumpling. 

Sokka winces. “Right. Sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She pushes the plate towards him. Sokka takes a dumpling, but doesn’t eat it. There’s a question nagging at the back of his mind; it’s been there in the background ever since he saw a red dragon in the sky.

“Toph,” he says quietly, “have you seen Kou?”

He hasn’t seen the spirit since their little zoo expedition, which ended with—well. Sokka’s glad Toph can’t see the blush on his face.

Still, though, Kou’s absence worries him. He wasn’t there for the Face-Stealer’s visit, and even the _king_ had been there.

“What is it with you and Kou?” Toph grumbles. “But no, I haven’t. Don’t stress it. He disappears sometimes.”

“He does?” For some reason, the thought of Kou taking off without telling him makes Sokka’s chest feel hollow. “What for?”

Toph shrugs. “Who knows? Most people say it’s for the king’s dirty work.”

“He—he works for the king?” 

Toph gives him a sideways look, which somehow manages to hit home despite the fact that her eyes are unfocused. “Who else would he work for? He’s practically the king’s right-hand man.”

“Oh.” It feels like a block of ice has just slid down Sokka’s throat. “Okay.” He remembers blazing gold eyes and _not anymore._ Had Kou been lying? 

Toph nudges him with her foot. “Cheer up, Snoozles. You managed to get the king in a good mood with the Face-Stealer. That’s a pretty big thing.”

“Speaking of the Face-Stealer…” Sokka pulls out the green ball he’d been given by the spirit. It smells a bit like medicine. “What do you think this is?”

Toph holds out her hand. He places the ball carefully in her palm.

She wrinkles her nose. “Is this _tofu?”_

Sokka laughs. “No, it’s not. It’s green.”

“Colours mean nothing to me.”

“Oh, right. Uh, it’s...well, it’s not tofu.”

Toph brings it to her nose and sniffs it, then pulls a face. “Urgh. Is it medicine?”

“Dunno. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The Face-Stealer gave it to me.”

“Well, it smells like medicine. Hand.” 

He holds out his hand, and Toph dumps the ball back in his palm, folding his fingers over it. “If the Face-Stealer gave it to you, it’s probably important. Hang on to it.”

Sokka nods, stashing it in his pocket. “Right. Oh, and Toph?”

“Is this your last question?” she asks, her head lolling back onto her shoulders. “‘Cause I’m ready to go to sleep.”

“Last question,” Sokka promises. “What happened to the Face-Stealer? Why was he...like that?”

“You mean—?” Toph blows a raspberry, which Sokka thinks is a pretty accurate impersonation of the Face-Stealer’s stink-spirit form. “Well, you said he had a bunch of masks inside him, right? _I’m_ willing to bet that he tried to steal someone’s face, and they kept tricking him into stealing masks instead.”

“That happens?”

“Oh, yeah.” She leans back, crossing her arms behind her head. “Whoever it is must’ve been really good, to get him to take that many.”

“Why would he keep trying to steal their face, even though they’d tricked him before?”

Toph shrugs. “Hey, I’m not a Face-Stealer. I don’t know how his brain works. But challenges, riddles, games—those things are real big in the spirit world, especially with the higher spirits. I’m guessing he saw it as a game: steal this person’s face, and he wins.”

“That’s…”

“Stupid? Yeah,” Toph agrees. “Anyway, the Face-Stealer literally specialises in stealing faces. It’s in his _name._ Masks prevent him from stealing faces, so by having that many inside him...it probably did something to his chi. That's why he, y'know." She blows another raspberry.

“Okay, it’s official,” Sokka says. “I’ll never understand spirits.”

Toph snorts and gets to her feet. “Then be thankful you don’t need to. Night, Snoozles. See you in the morning.”

* * *

The lights are out. 

Jet creeps through the palace halls, careful not to make any noise. If he's lucky, there'll still be gold left over from the Face-Stealer's visit. 

He gets to the baths and lights a lantern—can't find gold if you can't see it, after all—and scans the wooden floorboards. A glimmer catches his eye, and he crouches down to dig at it.

Something clinks on the floor in front of him. He raises his head to see a tiny, shining piece of gold. It'd fallen from above, which means someone dropped it, which means—

He looks up to apprehend the intruder, and _woah_. Not what he was expecting to see.

There's a spirit standing in the bathtub, wearing a Kemurikage mask, but...this definitely isn't a Kemurikage spirit. The Kemurikage haven't come by the palace in years, and besides, they wear purple hooded cloaks, not red palace robes.

"Sorry, my friend." Jet gets to his feet and crosses his arms. "The bathhouse is closed. You need to leave."

The spirit doesn't respond. Jet narrows his eyes. _"Leave."_

It holds out its hands. Something glitters.

Jet leans forward. And there, forming before his eyes, is a solid half-handful of gold.

"Woah." He looks up at the spirit. "You _made_ this?"

It tip its hands forward, and more gold spills forth. So much, in fact, that it starts dripping from the spirit's hands, falling onto the floor.

Jet drops down and hurries to pick the pieces up. There's so much, and Jet can't help it—he laughs like a maniac. Dear gods, he's _rich._

The spirit starts moving further back into the tub, but—no, he can't let it go, it's a walking gold mine. He rises to his feet and approaches the tub.

"Hey," he says softly, turning on the charm. "Hey, it's okay. This?" He holds up the gold. "This is super cool. You must be really powerful."

The spirit doesn't respond, but it stops moving away. Jet takes this as a good sign, and he comes right up to the lip of the tub. "D'you want a bath? I can wake up Jeong Jeong, down in the boiler room. He won't mind, as long as you pay him." He eyes the gold meaningfully. 

The spirit hesitates. He leans in closer. "Look, if you just—"

Gold goes cascading to the floor, and it takes Jet a second to realise that it's because the spirit's hands are now pressed against his neck. It's not violent by any means, just its fingertips on either side of his jaw, but then—

Its fingers _burn._

Jet chokes out a gasp. He scrabbles at the spirit's hands, but they're stuck fast. It burns and burns and _burns,_ growing hotter by the second, and it's then that Jet realises:

As its fingers get hotter, the rest of him grows colder.

It's sucking out his body heat. For spirits, body heat means chi, which means it's literally draining his life away. Fuck, he's heard of these kinds of spirits, firebenders turned rotten—their inner fire eating at them from the inside out. But there hasn't been an incident like this in centuries; the spirit shouldn't have even been able to get into the bathhouse, unless someone let it in.

His teeth start chattering. His fingers are numb. He's already lost feeling in his toes. 

"Please," he croaks out, wrapping his hands around one of its wrists. _"Please."_

The spirit doesn't hear him. And if it does, it doesn't care.

* * *

Pakku grumbles to himself as he sees the lit lantern by the baths. No doubt it's some lowlife trying to scrounge up some last minute gold. He resigns himself to having to lecture them on the palace curfew.

"It's past curfew," he calls, once he's in earshot of the baths. "Whoever you are, get out of there. You won't find any gold, the whole place has been picked clean."

There's no response. Huh. So they want to play the waiting game.

Pakku's too tired for this. He marches right into the baths and—

And stops.

Jet's lying on the ground, gold scattered around him, pale as a ghost and eyes wide open. His lips and fingers are tinted blue, and Pakku knows that he's dead. Not dead as in _can't come back,_ but dead as in _no life left._ There are five marks on the side of his neck, the perfect size and shape for fingerprints, and Pakku's blood runs cold.

They've got a rogue firebender. An ashmaker. An ashmaker who's already killed once, most likely wouldn't hesitate to kill again—

"Hey, boss!"

Pakku looks up. And there, crouched on the wall in a distinctly Jet-like stance, is a spirit in palace robes. A Kemurikage mask covers its face.

Here's the ashmaker, then. Speaking with Jet's voice, and moving with Jet's movements, because they'd absorbed Jet's chi.

"I'm cold," the ashmaker says, and Pakku imagines a wide smile behind the Kemurikage mask. "Freezing! Anything you can do to fix that?"

Pakku gulps. The ashmaker tosses down a handful of gold.

"There, I'll pay you," it says. "And I could really go for a bath. A hot one. Why don't you go wake everyone up?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and the plot thickens.


	5. The Aviary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka turns a corner, unbolts a gate, and walks right into the middle of...an aviary?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, raising the chapter count Yet Again because I underestimated how much stuff happens in the span of, like, five minutes: haha this is fine

Sokka wakes up alone.

It's the middle of the day, which means that he really _shouldn't_ be alone, because business starts at night. But that's not even the weirdest thing—the weirdest thing is not only are the others gone, their sleeping bags are too.

A dark flicker of panic flares up in his chest. After all the other weird shit he's seen happen in the spirit world, it wouldn't exactly be unheard of for the last few days to have been a dream. What if he got kidnapped? What if the Phoenix King took him prisoner? What if—

"Hey, sleepyhead."

"Toph!" Sokka yelps, instinctively drawing his blankets up to cover his chest. The tiny sprite's leaning against the door, her face tilted towards him.

She snorts, tapping the skin just under her eye. Her _blind_ eye. "Did you just pull up your covers to stop the blind girl from seeing you shirtless?"

"...No."

"You _totally_ did." She stretches. "Anyway. You missed a lot while you were sleeping."

"Yeah, I can tell." He looks around at the empty room. "Where is everyone? And what happened to their sleeping bags?"

"New customer," Toph says. "Never seen her before. Well, never seen anyone before, but you know what I mean. And get this—" she lowers her voice, like she's telling him a secret. "She can make _gold."_

Sokka blinks. "Is that...normal?"

"No!" Toph throws up her hands. "If any of us regular ol' sprites could make gold, do you really think we'd still be here? Nah, gold-making is reserved for the high spirits, like the Phoenix King."

Sokka swallows. "Is it really a good thing if there's another spirit here on the same level as the Phoenix King?"

Toph chuckles. "Oh, no. It's really bad. We'll probably see some kind of power showdown between them soon enough. Well, you'll see it. I'll hear it."

"Okay, so, new customer. Everyone wants to serve her, so they can get more gold. That still doesn't explain the sleeping bags."

Toph spreads her hands. "That's the part I don't get either. Apparently she's cold all the time. Doesn't matter how many blankets we give her, she's still cold. Everyone's running around trying to find more stuff to get her warm."

"Everyone?"

 _"Everyone,"_ Toph confirms. "You really don't know how far most people here would go for a little extra gold."

"No, I guess I don't." Sokka props his chin on his hand, staring out at the city. From here, he can see the Middle Ring, innocently dry in the sunlight. 

Toph hums. "Well, I'm going down. You coming?"

Sokka shakes his head, then feels like an idiot when he remembers she can't see it. "No. Actually, I think I'm gonna go look for Kou."

Toph throws her head back and groans. " _Ugh._ Why do you like him so much? The dude's a dick."

"He's _not,"_ Sokka defends. "He took me to—"

He cuts himself off. He probably shouldn't tell Toph that Kou took him to see Aang and Katara; that's gotta be some kind of treason. Even if Toph won't tell, saying it out loud is risky enough. The Phoenix King probably has ways of spying on every room in the palace.

"He took you to what?" Toph prods. 

Sokka sighs. "He took me to...here. With you. It's probably the best job I could've gotten, as a human."

"O-oh." Toph looks pleasantly surprised. "That's...huh. That's nice, Snoozles. Real nice."

"Don't expect to hear it again," Sokka warns, and she laughs, high and clear.

"Go find your boyfriend," she says, shooing him off. "I'll be down by the baths if you need me."

* * *

Sokka rests his head on the balcony rail and looks out over Ba Sing Se.

It's freaky, he thinks, how human it looks. In the daytime, it's nothing but a ghost city, abandoned by its citizens a hundred years ago. At night, it's practically the centre of the spirit world.

He turns his head to gaze out at the animal pens, right on the edge of the Upper Ring. They seem so distant and far away. Untouchable.

"Where are you, Kou?" he muses. "You better come back before I forget what Aang and Katara look like."

He closes his eyes and just lets himself feel the wind on his face. What happens if he never rescues Aang and Katara? It's weird to admit it, but he thinks he could actually stay here, if he needed to. He can work alright, he gets food and a bed everyday, and he's got Toph and Teo and Kou, and—

And he'd be leaving his sister and best friend to, what—live out the rest of their lives as a fish and a lemur?

Sokka sighs. Yeah, not likely.

A rustling sound reaches his ears. It's not unlike the sound of Wan Shi Tong turning pages in his library.

Sokka cracks open an eye, and _holy fuck._

Kou's high in the sky above the Middle Ring. He's in his dragon form, twisting and turning and biting, and it's hard to tell against the deep red of his scales but Sokka's pretty sure he's bleeding. 

"What the _fuck,"_ he whispers to himself. Tiny flashes of white flicker in and out of view, all concentrated around Kou. They're...birds?

 _It's the bird spirits you've gotta watch out for,_ Toph's voice echoes in his head. _They'll pick your corpse to pieces and leave you there to rot._

Sokka's heart all but stops.

"Kou!" he screams, not caring who hears him. "Kou, get _out_ of there!"

It's hard to be sure, since Kou is—y'know—in the _sky—_ but Sokka thinks he sees the dragon turn to give him a Look, like: _what do you **think** I'm trying to do? _If the situation wasn't so serious, Sokka would've laughed. 

Kou turns and nosedives, so fast and so sudden that Sokka's heart plummets right alongside him. But he twists sideways right before he hits the buildings, leaving about a third of the white birds to smash themselves on the ground behind him. As the rest turn sharply and keep pursuing, Kou snaps his head around and breathes _fire._

It's terrifying. Sokka's never seen a firebender before, and yes, okay, he _knows_ Kou can bend fire—he'd done it that first night on the bridge—but his brain had never really made the connection. But he doesn't think just anyone would be able to do what Kou's doing now, sending thin streamlined jets of flame through the air like spears. His throat _glows,_ so brightly that Sokka can see the veins of his gullet even from this distance. As Kou rises into the cooler air, tendrils of steam curl off his body and seep from his mouth, like bits of his spirit are trying to escape. Sokka can't help but wince as he sees the trail he leaves behind: another third of the birds have turned to ash, scattering on the wind.

By the time the fire stops, there's only a mere fraction of the birds still in pursuit. Kou makes another hairpin turn, throwing more of them off his trail.

Sokka fistpumps, whooping. And then he realises that Kou's heading straight for _him._

"Oh shit," he mutters, glancing around and making some quick calculations. No, the doors definitely aren't big enough to fit a dragon right now. "Oh, _shit!"_

He runs back towards the doors and pushes them as far as they can go, then drags his sleeping bag up against the wall as a makeshift landing pad. It's not perfect, and Sokka's just thinking he should go get some spare clothes from the cupboard to cushion it more, but then he turns around and _Kou's right there—_

Sokka dives out of the way just in time to avoid getting crushed by one and a half tonnes of giant red dragon. Kou crashes straight through the doors, splintering them to pieces. He slams right into Sokka's sleeping bag, and dear _gods_ there's so much blood. The birds aren't far behind him, so Sokka rushes to shut the doors, his nails breaking on the wooden frame as he drags it shut. Some manage to squeeze in anyway, but most of them slam into the screen door and stay there.

Huh. They're not birds, they're _paper._ Sokka plucks one off his arm. It's cut in the shape of a flying crane, and as he turns it around in his hand, it shudders and starts to move.

He looks up, and _all_ the paper cranes are peeling away, from the screen and the floor and Sokka himself. He tenses, just in case they're planning to have another go at Kou, but they just...flutter away, in a thin white stream.

Okay, well, that's _bizarre,_ but then Sokka sees the streaks of blood on the floor and remembers that he has a very injured dragon in his room. He turns around and— _woah._

Kou looks _wild._ His eyes are so wide there's a thin ring of white around the dark pupils. His mouth is gaping open, and blood trickles down through his jaws to pool on the floor. His scales have been rubbed raw in places, and Tui, he's bleeding _so much._

"Kou." Sokka holds up his hands. The dragon snarls, sparks flying from his mouth. He tries to get into a defensive pose, but his leg buckles and he goes down. Sokka's heart _spasms._ "Kou, it's me. It's Sokka. You're—"

He doesn't get the chance to say _safe,_ because Kou fucking _rockets_ past him and into the open air beyond. Sokka yells, more out of shock than anything else, and sprints to the balcony railing. His feet slip and slide beneath him as he steps in puddles of Kou's blood.

He grabs the railing with both hands and leans out. Kou hasn't flown out, towards the lower rings; he's flown _up,_ to the Phoenix King's penthouse. 

_Why_ would he go to the Phoenix King? Sokka literally can't think of a worse person (or spirit) to go to, especially not when he's injured. He'll bleed out within the hour if he doesn't get help.

Fuck it, he decides, pushing off the railing and taking off down the hall. He's going after Kou.

* * *

Sokka's not entirely sure how to get to the Phoenix King's penthouse. He can't use the elevators. With the amount of traffic going on right now, what with the new spirit and all, there's no guarantee he'll be able to reach Kou before he bleeds out. He'll have to take the stairs.

There's just one problem: there are _so. Many. Stairs._

He climbs one flight, then another. His logic is this: it doesn't matter what direction he goes in, so long as that direction is up. Right?

It's shitty logic, but it's the only logic he's got. So Sokka keeps climbing stairs and ladders until his hands and knees ache. There's a distant cheering coming from the belly of the palace, and as he climbs higher it only gets louder.

Sokka finally pops his head up on the fifth floor, and the din is deafening. He's finally found the source: it looks like every spirit in the palace is gathered here, waving tip boxes and screaming. If he had to guess, he'd say this is the procession for the new spirit. The amount of people yelling 'gold' certainly seems to point that way.

Sokka pushes his way through the crowd, shoving his hands over his ears. Out of curiosity, he peers out at the middle of the floor, where an aisle has been cleared for the mysterious new customer.

He catches sight of the customer, being led forward by Master Pakku, and his stomach drops.

It's the masked spirit, but it's—not.

Oh, it's the same spirit, he has no doubts about that. But there are a few major changes.

First of all, she's sitting on a palanquin, being carried on the shoulders of four frog spirits. She's draped in blankets weighed down with heated stones. Her hair, which had been pulled back into a neutral topknot the last time he saw her, now hangs in a feminine half-up, half-down, with two strips framing her face.

But the biggest difference is the mask.

Instead of the full Kemurikage mask she'd been wearing last night, it's now been cracked in two. The bottom half has broken off completely, revealing a smiling red mouth and the bottom of a pointed nose. More cracks and fractures line the mask, and from this distance the jagged edges almost look like teeth.

It looks like the mask is eating her, Sokka thinks. It looks like she's being devoured.

The crowd is pushing him forward, and he grabs the wall to avoid being shoved out into the aisle. _There—_ he can see the elevator. Since he knows for sure this one's being ignored, he can risk using it. He stumbles towards it, squeezing through the crush.

When he gets there, however, he runs right into a frog spirit. The spirit grabs Sokka's wrist and gets right in his face. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

Sokka squirms, but the frog spirit's grip doesn't falter. "I'm just trying to get upstairs. Let me go!"

"Why, so you can steal all our belongings while we're distracted?" the frog spirit spits, and Sokka flexes his hands in an attempt not to punch him. The movement draws the frog's eyes to Sokka's hand, still held firmly in his grasp, and—

The frog spirit shrieks, dropping Sokka's hand. "Blood! _Blood!"_

Sokka blinks and looks down. His palm is stained completely crimson from gripping a railing wet with Kou's blood. Seriously, though, he'd expected the spirits to have more tolerance for blood than _this._

The frog spirit's panicked screams are drawing attention, though, and that's the last thing Sokka wants. He turns and runs blindly, pushing people out of the way, and—

He stumbles into the aisle, right in front of Pakku and the spirit. His mouth goes dry. _Fuck._

"Get out of the way!" Pakku snarls, making a swiping gesture with his hand. Sokka's only warning is a sudden whooshing sound before he's being smacked to his knees by a steaming whip of water, pulled straight out of some poor sprite's offering to the new spirit. 

Sokka's on his hands and knees, wheezing as he tries to cough some of the water out of his lungs. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Pakku flick his hand. The whip comes cracking down, striking him across the wrist, and Sokka yelps in pain. The water's _boiling,_ and there's already a strip of skin on his forearm that's bright pink and shiny. 

He's still kneeling smack dab in the middle of the aisle, though, and Pakku raises his hand one last time—

The masked spirit makes a pulling gesture with her hand. There's a sudden, deafening hiss, and the water that crashes down on Sokka is ice cold.

Sokka stares up at the spirit in disbelief. Had she just—pulled the heat out of the water? He doesn't even know what kind of bending that is, good gods—and that's if it's even considered bending in the first place.

Pakku stares at the spirit in horror, falling to his knees. Her mouth is set in a firm, hard line: displeasure.

"My lady, I'm sorry," he blubbers, touching his forehead to the floor. "I only meant to teach him a lesson."

The spirit turns her head away from him in a clear act of dismissal. She focuses her attention on _Sokka_ instead, and even though there's a slight curve to her lips Sokka still feels like he's just been handed a death sentence.

The spirit beckons him closer. He only takes one step.

She holds out her hands, and gold bursts forth. It grows until she's holding a small mound, and the spirits around them are practically salivating.

Sokka looks down at the gold and shakes his head. "No, thanks. I don't need it."

The spirit's faint smile falters. She pushes the gold in his direction. Insisting.

He holds up his hand. "I appreciate the offer, but I really gotta go. See ya!"

The spirit splays her fingers, and the gold goes crashing to the floor. The sprites throw formality out the window and pounce upon it like hungry animals, and in the chaos Sokka manages to find a side hall. He darts down it, leaving the gold-frenzied fray behind. 

As he sprints down the hallway, searching for a staircase, the faint sound of screaming reaches his ears. He thinks he hears someone shout, "Ashmaker!"

Huh, Sokka thinks, as he turns the corner. Wonder what _that_ means.

* * *

It soon becomes clear enough that Sokka's not going to find any staircases or elevators in this part of the palace. The only things he sees are sliding windows. He doesn't even know where he _is._

Okay. Plan A was get to Kou before he bleeds out. Plan A subsection one is to get out of here before he becomes hopelessly lost for the rest of eternity.

Right. He slides open the next window he sees, and to his relief he sees a tin rooftop just below it.

Well. Now or never.

Sokka climbs onto the windowsill and _jumps._

He hits the tin hard enough to jar his leg, but weeks of travelling with two benders in a world that would use them as circus tricks has taught him how to think fast. He tucks and rolls, which is both good and bad.

Good, because it stops him from breaking his leg. Bad, because it nearly sends him hurtling off the roof.

He manages to grab onto a stray tile to stop his fall. Tui and La, that was way too close; his ankles are dangling off the edge. He pulls himself up into a crouching position and scans his surroundings.

He's next to the boilers, that's obvious enough. Which is lucky, because he knows his way around here decently well. The Phoenix King's penthouse is—yep, there it is, right above his head: an obnoxiously fancy pagoda, complete with gold caps on the corners. Sokka grits his teeth at the careless display of wealth.

Oh, shit. He's going to have to climb the outside of the building, isn't he?

Sokka groans. Yeah. He is.

It's convenient that he works in the bathhouse part of the palace and not, like, the temple. The bathhouse needs hot water, which needs a boiler, and the boiler needs constant maintenance. Which means that there's a _very_ conveniently placed metal ladder on the side of the building.

Unfortunately, that conveniently placed metal ladder is not-so-conveniently placed a full four metres away from Sokka. There's one very obvious path to it: a brass pipe fixed into the wall, probably used for pumping water to the boilers. 

He crouches down and presses a hand to it experimentally. To his surprise, it's cool. 

So. The pipe hasn't been used in a while. That's good, because it means that he's not at risk of accidentally plunging his feet into boiling water.

...Then Sokka remembers that that _also_ means that the pipe is much, much more likely to break than one currently in use, and he gulps.

His palm itches. He looks down at it to see the drying stains of Kou's blood, and his resolve hardens.

Kou needs him. He has to do this.

Sokka rolls up his sleeves, re-ties his wolf-tail, takes a deep breath and _runs._

As he'd expected, the metal rods holding the pipe to the wall start popping out the moment he puts pressure on them. The pipe groans, steadily listing away from the wall. Sokka keeps running, each step getting larger and larger, until—

Beneath his feet, the pipe falls away. Sokka _leaps_ for the ladder and grabs it by the very tips of his fingers. The metal is startlingly cold, and it bites at his skin, but he clings to it like a hog-monkey to a tree.

The pipe sinks down until it's brushing the rooftops of the Upper Ring. Sokka breathes out, forces himself not to panic, and starts to climb.

It doesn't take long before his lungs and chest are burning and his arms ache with the effort. He stops, still a good storey or two away from the bottom of the pagoda, just to catch his breath.

Something rustles, just behind his head. He turns around sharply, but there's nothing there.

Wait, no. There's _definitely_ something there.

Sokka squints. There's a red-gold blur in the sky, coming steadily closer. 

He realises what it is, and he shrinks down against the ladder on instinct.

"Holy _fuck,"_ he whispers, as the king flies overhead. His cloak is pulled up to his nose, and the folds form some sort of makeshift wing. So _that's_ why he's called the Phoenix King—because he's a _literal phoenix._

Sokka rests his forehead against the ladder rung. Okay. Okay. So the king can turn into a fucking bird. That's fine, that's totally fine.

He clenches his fist. Blood flakes off his palm.

_Kou needs me._

He keeps climbing.

* * *

The pagoda's supported by stone arches that branch off the palace on all sides, and between these arches are windows. Unlike the windows in the rest of the palace, they don't slide—they're locked with a latch, which means Sokka is _fucked._

He curls up in the frame of one window and pulls at the metal latch furiously. It's no use; the locking mechanism is on the other side. 

Sokka shrugs and turns away from the window, then kicks back with all his might. When brains don't work, use brawn.

The window is stiff and unyielding, and his heel is starting to ache. Every time he hits the window it makes little more than a dull thud. Still, he has to keep trying; he can't give up now. 

He hears that sound of rustling paper yet again, and on his next kick the window swings open. Sokka yelps as he tumbles backwards and hits a cold marble floor.

 _"Ow,"_ he complains, rubbing his backside. Then he looks up, and his jaw drops.

He's landed in the fanciest bathroom he's ever seen. There's a gold claw-footed bathtub that could probably fit Sokka _and_ Toph _and_ Teo and still have room to spare, there's an expensive-looking patterned vase standing in the corner for apparently no reason, and the torch sconces are so elaborate Sokka's eyes hurt just from looking at them.

He shakes his head and pushes at the bathroom doors. They swing open silently, revealing a hallway even fancier than the bathroom. It's lined with gold pillars, and the walls are adorned with phoenix motifs.

Sokka scoffs. How pretentious can one person get?

He reaches the end of the hallway, which splits off in both directions, and goes left on a whim. A few times, he tries to turn again, only to run smack dab into a mirror. Idly, he wonders how long it took for the Phoenix King to be able to navigate around his own home.

Sokka turns a corner, unbolts a gate, and walks right into the middle of...an aviary?

That's certainly what it _looks_ like. The ceiling is high, domed and made of glass, and sunlight streams in mercilessly. In fact, there isn't a single inch of the room not bathed in light. 

There's flowering green foliage _everywhere,_ and Sokka recognises none of the plants that line the walls. A small waterfall gurgles quietly in the corner, feeding into a circular pool. He feels a bit like he's just walked into a miniature jungle. 

Except he's pretty sure jungles don't usually have sleeping phoenixes on the floor. Just a thought.

He backs away very, very slowly. The phoenix—AKA the bird that he'd smacked into a wall—is curled up in a tangle of blazing red and gold. The sun hits it at an angle that literally _cannot_ be comfortable; Sokka feels hot just from looking at it.

And yet the phoenix sleeps on.

The sudden sound of the Phoenix King’s voice makes Sokka freeze up. Hidden behind a drooping tree is a set of deep red curtains, and behind them is the king.

“...a mess,” he’s saying. Sokka creeps closer. “An ashmaker, you say? Hm.” Sokka pushes aside the curtains. Beyond them are a set of doors, cracked open. Sokka peers through.

The king isn’t speaking to a spirit, like Sokka had thought; he’s dictating a message, speaking out loud as a brush dashes down his words in ink. A white weasel, identical to the one on Jet’s desk down in the baths, is chewing up the paper as fast as the brush is writing it. Once the king stops speaking, the weasel squeaks, breathes a small puff of fire, and spits a message right back out in pristine condition—no doubt the reply from whoever the king is talking to.

Sokka doesn’t know how spirit world communications work, but fire-breathing weasels are just _bizarre._

“Ashmaker, ashmaker…” The king is muttering to himself, pacing around his office. His boot connects with something Sokka can’t see, making a solid _thud,_ and he snarls in annoyance. 

“Get him out of here,” the king snaps. “He’s useless to me anyway. Bleeding out like a stuck pig.”

Sokka’s stomach drops. _Kou._

“I’m coming down,” the king warns whoever’s on the other end of the weasel-line. “Don’t do anything until I get there. That is an _order.”_

The brush abruptly drops dead, clattering to the desk, and the weasel yawns and curls up to sleep. To Sokka’s horror, the king doesn’t leave; he turns and marches towards the aviary.

Sokka scrambles backwards, nearly tripping over the sleeping phoenix in his haste. He dives into a particularly thick clump of shrubbery right as the king pushes aside the curtains.

He crouches down beside the phoenix and pets its head with uncharacteristic gentleness. The bird stirs, trilling softly into the king’s palm.

“You’ve grown today, my my,” the king murmurs, sounding pleased. “The summer solstice approaches.”

Sokka has absolutely _no idea_ what the king is talking about, but that seems to be all. The king straightens, leaving the phoenix to curl up again, and sweeps out of the room.

Sokka waits until he hears the sound of a door slamming shut before he lets himself breathe out. He shimmies out of the bushes, brushing leaves out of his hair, and eyes the phoenix on the floor. It _looks_ like it’s sleeping, but he can’t be certain.

Okay. If he just...moves out of the aviary...very slowly and very carefully...

His foot scuffs against the floor. The phoenix's eyes snap open.

Sokka curses under his breath. 

The phoenix raises its head. It has a smooth, swanlike neck, feathers gleaming in the sun. It glares at Sokka, opens its beak, and lets out a baleful hiss.

...What the fuck? Do birds do that? Do they hiss? Is that normal?

Sokka find that his definition of 'normal' is changing rapidly. For instance: normal is kind-of-maybe crushing on a dragon spirit, and asking Toph to earthbend to speed up their chores, and trying very, very hard to avoid Wan Shi Tong's creepy foxes.

Normal is not: birds hissing. That’s it. He can handle anything but birds hissing. 

Nevertheless, the bird is hissing.

“Okay, okay, I’m _going,”_ Sokka hisses right back. The phoenix starts hissing _louder,_ sounding vaguely like a steaming kettle, or Katara when she gets mad. Its wings start to unfurl, and, uh. Was it this big the last time Sokka saw it? Because he swears it wasn’t this big. 

And then it _launches itself at Sokka’s face._

Sokka yells, all thoughts of stealth gone, and sprints out of the aviary. The phoenix is _massive,_ its wingspan wider than Sokka is tall. Its talons rake against his skin, leaving deep red gouges in his arms that sting like _hell_ , and Sokka throws himself against the doors that lead into the Phoenix King’s office.

They give way. He hits the floor and scrambles away, batting frantically at the phoenix. It lets out a high-pitched shriek as it dive-bombs him again, and Sokka ducks, throwing his hands up over his eyes.

It’s then that he sees Kou.

Kou, unconscious, still in his dragon form. Kou, bleeding out, about to be pushed over the edge of a pit by three snuffling moles.

 _“Get away from him!”_ Sokka roars, a fierce protectiveness flaring up in his chest. The moles scatter in panic as he lunges forwards, grabbing Kou and dragging him away from that horrible, terrible, dark empty pit.

Why does the king have a seemingly bottomless pit in his office? Who knows.

Another shrill cry has Sokka looking up, only to see the phoenix’s gleaming golden beak aimed right for his skull. He yelps and buries his face in Kou’s scales, and the phoenix’s talons graze the back of his head as it swoops past.

He’s going to die. He’s going to have his brains pecked out by a phoenix.

Oh, gods, Toph was right. The bird spirits _are_ the worst.

Kou’s scales are slippery under his hands as he tries, unsuccessfully, to heave the giant dragon under the king’s desk. The phoenix screams yet again, then flies all the way up to the top of the high, domed ceiling, where it wheels around for another go. 

Something rustles in Sokka’s ear. He turns his head and, this time, he actually sees what’s rustling. 

It’s one of those damned paper cranes. It’s missing a wing, but it stands upright anyway, one paper claw brushing the carpet.

 _“I think,”_ a voice says, from none other than the fucking crane, _“it’s time we stopped that terrible shrieking, no?”_

Sokka gapes at it as a man rises up out of the carpet. Well—not quite. It’s clear he’s not really _here;_ he’s transparent, but still very real.

The phoenix dives down with a whistling war cry. The man (spirit?) flicks a careless hand at it, and it shrinks into a tiny brown sparrow mid-flight.

A laugh bursts out past Sokka’s lips. He can’t help it; the phoenix-turned-sparrow looks so _stupid,_ flitting around helplessly as it tries to figure out what just happened. 

The man (nope, definitely spirit) turns to Sokka with a benevolent smile on his face. He looks kind enough; he’s short and squat, with a round belly, a pointy beard, and a warm twinkle in his eye.

That twinkle abruptly fades as he sees Kou. “Oh dear,” he says quietly, hurrying towards them. “Oh, no. This is not good at all.”

“W-what?” Sokka can’t do anything but watch as the spirit reaches out to place a hand on Kou’s head. “I don’t—who _are_ you?”

“My name is Iroh,” the spirit says, “but you may call me Uncle. It is what Kou calls me, after all.”

Sokka stares at him. “You mean you’re—?”

Iroh inclines his head. “I am Ozai’s older brother. And I assure you, I am nothing like him.”

Sokka’s mouth goes dry. He glances at the sparrow, now perched miserably on the back of the king’s inkwell. “Uh. Sure.” He looks down at Kou. “Is he gonna be okay?”

Iroh frowns. “It is hard to tell. His wounds—”

 _“Wait.”_ Sokka shoots to his feet. “You— _you’re_ the one who sent the paper cranes, aren’t you?”

Iroh gives him a quizzical look. “Of course.”

Sokka’s hands ball into fists, and he grinds his teeth. “Then it’s _your_ fault he’s like this! Your cranes did this to him!” He throws out a hand at Kou, whose breathing is laced with blood. “Why are you helping him?”

Iroh looks stricken. “My cranes did no such thing!” he protests. “They were made to threaten, but never injure; Kou’s wounds are of his own volition.”

“You mean he did this to _himself?”_ Sokka laughs, and it sounds eerily bitter even to his own ears. “And you expect me to _believe it?”_

Iroh shakes his head mournfully. “Kou was acting under his father’s orders. He stole something from me, something very powerful. The cranes were meant to intimidate him into giving it back.”

Sokka shakes his head, crouching down and wrapping his arms around Kou’s neck. “No. No, he wouldn’t. He’s _good.”_

“Wouldn’t he?” Iroh sighs. “Kou is kind, but he is bound to his father’s will. He will do anything the king wants, regardless of whether or not it is _good.”_

Sokka presses his face against Kou’s neck. He smells like coppery blood, but he’s still as warm as ever. Toph’s voice echoes in his head: _he’s practically the king’s right-hand man._

“Okay,” Sokka says, his voice muffled by Kou’s scales. “Fine. So he stole something. Why is he…?”

His voice trails off. He’s not quite sure how to end his question: bleeding? Injured? _Dying?_

“The thing he stole had many powerful protection spells cast on it,” Iroh says heavily. “If it is stolen, it will kill the thief from the inside out.”

Sokka stares down at the dragon before him, his hands trembling. Kou, dead? He’s not sure it’s even possible. 

The phoenix-sparrow lands on his shoulder and pecks at his ear. Sokka lets out a watery laugh, raising a hand to pet it.

“Oh, yes, we’ll need a double,” Iroh muses. He points at the three moles who’d been trying to push Kou into the pit. “Perfect!”

He snaps his fingers, and Sokka stares in fascinated horror as the moles bulge and merge together. In the blink of an eye, there’s another phoenix identical to the first, though this one is making some suspicious snuffling sounds.

“There,” Iroh says, satisfaction seeping into his voice. “Now—”

Whatever Iroh has planned, Sokka doesn’t get to hear it. Because right at that moment, Kou’s eyes snap open.

He catches sight of Iroh and _roars,_ thrashing, fire spilling from between his teeth. Sokka flinches and throws his arms around the dragon’s neck, pressing his face into Kou’s scales even as they grow uncomfortably hot. 

Iroh’s paper crane is burnt to cinders in a second. Iroh’s image goes up in flames, and Kou thumps his tail against the floor.

It’s too much motion. With a sudden, sinking certainty, Sokka feels them slipping sideways and knows they’re going to fall.

They do. They topple sideways into the Phoenix King’s pit, Sokka clinging tight to Kou’s bloodied crimson neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm. Not a lot of action in this chapter, but So Much Action in the next chapter, and I'm pretty sure y'all know what i'm talking about 👀


	6. The Ashmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ashmaker smiles. Her mouth is the slash of a bloody knife.  
> “You’re no fun,” she says, and strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the longest chapter of the fic. It's also my favourite, for obvious reasons.

The pit is completely and utterly dark.

The tiny square of light that is the Phoenix King’s office shrinks almost immediately. Sokka can’t hear anything but the whooshing of wind. He’s vaguely aware of the phoenix-sparrow’s wing fluttering against his cheek; the tiny bird’s talons are stuck in Sokka’s shirt, so he’s coming along for the ride.

Kou snorts, and twin plumes of flame shoot out from his nose, illuminating everything around them. They’re plummeting in a stone pit, with holes and tunnels dotted along the walls. 

Sokka makes the mistake of looking down.

There, on the floor, is a seething mass of grey, shapeless matter. Sokka’s stomach lurches; he hasn’t seen spirits like that since his first night in Ba Sing Se. They all look up at Sokka, Kou and the sparrow as they approach, reaching up bubbling limbs like they’re preparing to reel them in.

Kou growls, deep in his throat, and Sokka instinctively tightens his grip. The dragon throws himself against the wall, wriggling into one of the tunnels, and Sokka is taken along with him.

The tunnel is narrow, too narrow, and Sokka winces as the skin of his back is scraped raw against the stone. Beneath him, Kou keens lowly; his scales are being torn off him left and right, but he keeps going.

Finally, up ahead: light. A vent, Sokka realises, as they come closer and closer—

They crash through the vent like it’s made of paper, landing squarely on top of Wan Shi Tong.

The owl spirit _shrieks_ and Kou shrieks right back. Sokka is thrown off his seat on the dragon’s back; he comes up panting, only to find two feral animals pacing in the library.

Sometimes he forgets that they are, technically, animals. Wan Shi Tong’s neck is pushed right out, his eyes dark and his beak open in a hiss—because apparently all the bird spirits just _do_ that. Kou’s jaws gape open in either an act of aggression or an act of exhaustion; smoke curls from his nostrils, and his talons dig into the floor. 

Sokka scrambles to his feet. “Okay!” he yells, and both animals turn to him. “If everyone just—calms down—”

 _“Intruder,”_ Wan Shi Tong growls, deep and low. Sokka gulps. _“Intruders, both of you.”_

Sokka has no idea what he’s meant to do in this situation, but he bows low. “My deepest and sincerest apologies, sir,” he improvises on the spot. “It wasn’t our intention to enter your library without permission. My friend is hurt, and he needs help.”

There, that sounded spirit-y. Right?

Wan Shi Tong seems to deflate, his feathers lowering and his claws relaxing. He swivels his head around to look at Kou, hunched over the floor with his talons punched into the carpet.

“Your apology has been accepted,” the owl spirit says in a low, gravelly voice. “And I tell you now: give up. There is nothing that can help your friend. He has triggered a protection spell, and he must now pay the price.”

“But that’s not—” Sokka stops himself before he can say _fair._

Something Kou had said, that first night as they both crouched before the Middle Ring, now echoes in his ears: _your kind always complains about things being unfair._

Sokka realises it is, in fact, very fair. What had Kou said, when they visited the zoo? The punishment fits the crime. Cause and effect.

Kou’s crime was stealing something that shouldn’t have been stolen; of _course_ he would trigger a protective spell.

Before him, Kou trembles, his chest heaving like staying alive is the hardest thing he’s ever done. And, as he collapses, eyes falling shut, Sokka thinks it might _actually_ be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

“Kou!” He pushes Wan Shi Tong out of the way, propriety be damned. He drops to his knees next to the dragon and turns up to look at the owl spirit. “What’s _wrong_ with him?”

“He’s bleeding internally,” Wan Shi Tong notes. His voice is cool and flat; he couldn’t care less what happens to Kou, and everyone in the room knows it. “He’s going to die.”

Sokka cradles Kou’s head in his hands and presses his forehead to the dragon’s scales, to the space between his curling golden horns. Kou’s losing heat; he’s only lukewarm now, nowhere near the warmth he usually gives off.

Sokka stifles a sob. What does he _do?_ He can’t heal with waterbending, not like Katara. He can’t even heal _normally,_ with bandages and oils and salves. And even if he could, he’s still just a human, and this is a spirit dying from a spirit’s curse; he doubts any human remedies would work.

Wait, no—he _does_ have a spirit remedy. Sokka plunges his hand in his pocket, hoping against all hope that it’s still in there, somehow, that it hasn’t fallen out.

His fingers close around the ball, and he nearly weeps in relief. He yanks it out of his pocket and presses it to Kou’s snout.

“Kou, please, _please,_ open your mouth,” he begs. “I’ve got a gift from the Face-Stealer, it might—it might help, it might do _something,_ just _please_ open your mouth…”

Kou gives no indication of having heard him. Sokka pulls up the flap of skin that hides his jaw and shoves the Face-Stealer’s gift in, but Kou’s fangs are locked shut. 

“Come _on!”_ Sokka tugs at Kou’s teeth, but they don’t even budge. “Kou, please, wake up, just let me—” 

He knows Kou can’t hear him. He tears a piece off the ball anyway, shoving it in his own mouth. It tastes like rotten seaweed, and he spits it out into his hand almost immediately, gagging.

“It’s safe, I swear,” he tells Kou, crushing the rest of the ball in his palm and trying to force it between Kou’s teeth. “It’s gross, but it’s _safe,_ please just _eat it, Kou, just fucking eat it!”_

He slams the heel of his palm down on Kou’s bottom jaw, then pulls his top jaw up with his other hand. Relief crashes over him as finally, _finally,_ Kou’s mouth starts to open.

“A gift from the Face-Stealer,” Wan Shi Tong muses, lowering his face down to stare. “A most unusual thing. Such a shame to waste it on a dying—”

“You _shut the hell up!”_ Sokka roars, and the owl spirit rears back. “Shut _up!_ He’s going to live, you hear me? _He’s going to fucking live!”_

He shoves his hand down Kou’s throat, dropping the crushed remains of the ball on the back of the dragon’s tongue. And then, because he’s desperate and terrified but still not completely stupid, he draws his arm back before it gets bitten off.

“Now _swallow,”_ he orders, wrapping his arms around Kou’s jaws and pressing his forehead to Kou’s snout. For a moment, the dragon lies still, and then—

His eyes shoot open, still bright, burning gold, and he _roars._ Sokka squeezes his eyes shut and presses down on Kou’s snout with all his might. Flames issue from between Kou’s teeth, scorching the library floor.

Sokka grits his teeth and doesn’t let up. Kou thrashes beneath him, shrieking, screaming, his tail flapping wildly and crashing into shelves. His scales _burn,_ and Sokka knows his arms are going to get scarred, but he holds on tight and doesn’t let go.

Wan Shi Tong takes flight, and as Kou’s tail thumps against the hardwood floor, Sokka thinks he hears a fox’s scream. Finally, something _balloons_ in Kou’s throat, swelling up just behind his jaw, until—

Kou spits out a black, gooey _thing,_ vaguely circular and oozing slime. It comes out with so much force that Sokka’s thrown sideways, off of Kou’s head, crashing to the ground and stopping just short of a library shelf.

Kou moans and crumples, his head hitting the floor with a dull thud. Sokka scrambles to his feet, about to run to his aid, but Wan Shi Tong roars, “The slug, you daft fool, kill the _slug!”_

Sokka whips his head around. The black slime is dissolving before his eyes with an acidic hiss, leaving nothing behind but a stain on the floor and a round wooden chip. A tiny, dark, slimy slug is curled up on top of it, and it turns wide eyes to Sokka as it realises its been caught.

“ _Kill it!”_ Wan Shi Tong bellows again, and Sokka lunges forward. The slug darts out of the way, surprisingly fast, and Sokka chases it in circles, before his foot finally comes down on it with a decisive _splat._

He shudders and lifts his foot. Goo between the toes is _not_ a nice feeling. 

“You killed it?” Wan Shi Tong sounds mildly curious. “That’s bad luck.”

Sokka swallows. “It is?”

“Yes.” The owl turns his head and whistles into the library. A fox bounds out of the shadows.

“Put your thumb and forefingers together,” Wan Shi Tong says. Sokka obliges, holding out his hands. His fingers form a misshapen circle, and the fox places its snout on top of it.

“Evil begone,” Wan Shi Tong intones, and the fox pushes its snout down with enough force to break Sokka’s hands apart. Its work done, it bows its head to Wan Shi Tong and returns to the depths of the library.

“There,” the owl says. “It’s gone.”

Sokka inches away from him. “Why are you helping me?”

Wan Shi Tong cocks his head. “You brought me new knowledge. It would be rude of me as a host to not return the favour.”

“I did?” Sokka racks his brain, but he can’t remember telling the owl spirit anything.

Wan Shi Tong nods at Kou, lying motionless on the floor. “Yes. I now know that it is possible to survive a protection spell, if given medicine from the Face-Stealer.” He turns his head and regards Sokka with a cool glint in his eye. “I thought he would die. You proved me wrong. It has been a very, very long time since I have been proven wrong.”

Sokka gulps. “Is that...good?”

“It depends on how you see it.” Wan Shi Tong inclines his head. “But you have my respect. Now, what was it Kou stole?”

Sokka leans down and picks up the circular chip. It’s smooth and wooden, with a picture of a lotus on it.

“Iroh’s White Lotus tile,” Wan Shi Tong says softly. “Powerful magic. I see why the king would send Kou to steal it.”

“You know Iroh?” Sokka asks, surprised.

“Of course I know him.” Wan Shi Tong’s eyes meet Sokka’s, and the dark fire within them makes Sokka wonder if he made a mistake when he yelled at him before. “I am Wan Shi Tong: he who knows ten thousand things. The name of a powerful spirit is not a difficult thing to know.”

“Right,” Sokka says, surreptitiously shuffling backwards. A sighing, shifting sound behind him makes him turn his head, and his jaw drops.

Kou’s changing from dragon to human before his eyes. Well, not _human,_ but close enough. His scales fuse together to form bloodied, scratched-up skin, his horns darken and split apart into thousands of strands of hair, and his claws shrink into nails that are cracked and bleeding from scrabbling at the walls. Sokka’s heart hurts to see him like this.

“Kou,” he whispers, dropping to his knees beside him and bundling the spirit up into his arms. “Kou, wake up. Wake _up.”_

Kou’s head lolls over his forearm, baring his throat. His skin is clammy and feverish—not a good sign.

“The spell has left him weak,” Wan Shi Tong observes, and whistles lowly. It takes a few moments, but three foxes come running, dragging a futon behind them. They deposit it next to Kou, then scamper off into the library as Sokka maneuvers him onto it.

“Let him rest,” Wan Shi Tong tells him. “My foxes will be back soon enough. I have given them orders to mix him a remedy.”

“A remedy?” Sokka looks up sharply. (There’s another part of his brain that’s screaming, _he has_ **_foxes_ ** _making_ **_medicine?_** , but he pushes that part down.) “You can cure him?”

“He is already cured,” the owl spirit says. “There is nothing left inside him that will cause him further damage. It is the damage already done that you must focus on.”

True enough, the foxes come back later with a canteen, its rope dangling from the leader’s mouth. Under Wan Shi Tong’s instruction, Sokka takes the canteen and trickles its contents into Kou’s mouth. When he’s done, there’s nothing left to do but sit by his bedside and wait.

To his surprise, Wan Shi Tong waits with him. After a brief stretch of silence, the owl spirit speaks.

“He had a sister, you know.”

Sokka blinks. Kou...with a sister? He can’t help but think of Katara, and his heart pangs. 

“She was younger than him,” Wan Shi Tong continues, “and she went mad.”

Sokka twitches. His mind’s image of Katara abruptly turns to smoke. “Oh.”

“Yes,” the owl agrees. “I did not know her name. Nor do I know what happened to her, or what made her spiral so, but she grew too unstable to keep in the palace. The king cast her out and wiped her from the records, and thus wiped her from palace memory. No one but I remembers her existence.”

Sokka gives the owl a sideways look. “Why do _you_ remember her, then?”

Wan Shi Tong scoffs. “I am the spirit of knowledge. Once I learn something, I cannot forget it. Not even the Phoenix King could take something from my mind.”

Sokka looks down at his hands. He’s been turning Iroh’s tile in his hands, rubbing it smooth with his thumb. “Speaking of Kou’s family…” he begins. “Do you think—if I returned this to Iroh—do you think Kou would recover? If Iroh lifts the spell completely, would its effects disappear as well?”

“I do not know.” Wan Shi Tong looks distinctly frustrated. “It could help him, but Iroh is a dangerous spirit. He has a peaceful disposition, but it is he who took this city for the spirits, a hundred years ago.”

Sokka’s blood runs cold. “You mean—this place really _did_ use to be human?”

“Oh, yes,” the owl says calmly. “It was built by human hands. Under the orders of his father, Iroh lay siege for six hundred days. By the time he was done, every brick of this city was completely under the spirits’ power.”

Sokka shudders, remembering how eerily empty the city had been when he’d first entered. Now he knows why. But he looks down at Kou, shivering and nearly dead, and he knows he has to do this.

He brushes Kou’s hair out of his face and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. Beneath his lips, Kou’s skin is burning hot. 

He stands and turns to Wan Shi Tong, tucking Iroh’s tile in his pocket. “I’m going to do it. Do you know where Iroh lives?”

The owl watches him, dark eyes glinting with what looks like respect. “I know how you can get there. But,” he warns, “you’ll have to get back on your own. Wait here.”

He stands silently, slinking off into the depths of the library. Sokka leans against a shelf and watches Kou’s chest rise and fall.

A flicker of movement catches his eye. He turns his head to see a fox sitting in a nearby aisle, its too-bright eyes fixed on him.

“Hello,” he says softly. “Could you get me my clothes and weapons? _My_ clothes, I mean. Not…” He gestures down at the palace robes he’s wearing. “This.”

The fox swishes its tail, and it feels like an affirmation. It gets to its feet and pads off into the library. Sokka watches it disappear, and he sighs, looking back at Kou. This is important; Aang and Katara will have to wait.

A door slides open and shut, and a voice yells out, “Suo! You in here?”

“Toph?” Sokka asks, surprised. Toph lets out a string of curses and comes stomping around the corner.

“Where _were_ you? I’ve been looking everywhere!” She punches him in the arm, which...okay, he might have deserved that. Something small and light lands on his shoulder, and he looks over to see the phoenix-sparrow. It chirps, a small, clear sound, and Toph reels back.

“What is _that?”_

Sokka shrugs. “I made a new friend?”

Toph doesn’t laugh. “Suo, everyone’s looking for you. The king’s furious. Remember that new spirit, the one with all the gold? She’s a monster. An _ashmaker.”_

Sokka frowns. It’s not the first time he’s heard that word. “What’s an ashmaker?”

Toph shudders from head to foot. “Firebenders turned bad. They can suck away your body heat—and Suo, for a spirit, body heat means _chi._ It's our _life force._ She went nuts and started trying to kill everyone in sight. And she says _you_ let her in.”

Sokka clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. I kind of did.”

“You did _what?”_ Toph’s voice is so loud Sokka flinches back. “How could you—you _idiot!_ Why?!”

“I thought she was a customer!”

“She’s a _monster!”_ Toph clenches her fists. “She’s already killed Jet and Pakku! Damn it, Suo, you—”

“Here.” Wan Shi Tong drops down from above, so silently Sokka yelps and jumps back in surprise. The owl extends a wing, and balanced on his feathers is a single strip of paper, divided into three sections by dotted lines.

Sokka takes it, squinting. There are characters printed on it in faded ink, but he doesn’t recognise them. “What are these?”

“Monorail tickets,” the owl says smoothly, and Toph lets out a strangled gasp. 

“You have _monorail tickets?_ Where the hell did you get those?”

“I’ve been saving them for half a century,” Wan Shi Tong says, and Toph looks like she’s just about ready to start pulling out her hair. “Suo. Listen carefully. The monorail will take you over the Middle Ring. You must get off at the sixth stop; that is where Iroh lives. Do you understand?”

“The sixth stop,” Sokka repeats. “Got it.”

“The monorail used to go both ways, but these days it only goes in one.” Wan Shi Tong levels a warning look at him. “Do you still wish to go?”

Sokka nods. “I’ll walk back along the tracks and catch a boat across the Middle Ring. Kou needs me.”

“You’re doing this for—?!” Toph grabs him by the arm. “Are you _insane?_ You’re risking this for _Kou?”_

Sokka shakes her off. “You don’t _get it,_ Toph. Kou is—he’s—” He tries to find a word for what Kou is, exactly, and he comes up short. “He _means_ something, okay? I can’t just let him die.”

He walks back to Kou’s side and drops down next to him, pressing a hand to his cheek. “Kou, you gotta hang on, okay? I’ll be back soon, and you’ll be fine.”

In the background, he hears Toph whisper: “Wait, Kou’s dying? What’s going on?”

Wan Shi Tong answers, just as quietly: “It’s something you wouldn’t recognise. It’s called love.”

Sokka feels his cheeks heating up, but—well—if he _does_ love Kou, and he thinks he might, he doesn’t really mind. Kou’s a good person to love.

“Suo.” Toph’s voice shocks him out of his reverie. “I get that you want to help Kou, but you can’t just leave now. What about the ashmaker?”

Sokka takes a deep breath and stands, pushing the monorail ticket in his pocket alongside Iroh’s wooden tile. “I’ll take care of that now, before I go. Come on, Toph. Lead the way.”

* * *

Toph takes him up to the seventh floor, but she refuses to go with him past there. “No way am I going back in there,” she says. “The ashmaker’s _insane.”_

So Sokka makes his way to the ashmaker alone. As he gets closer to the banquet hall, where the ashmaker is apparently residing, he starts seeing more and more spirits. They’re all huddled against the walls, clutching things like blankets and lanterns and heating rocks. As he passes, they send him dirty looks, muttering behind their hands.

Sokka reaches the banquet hall doors and comes face-to-face with Master Piandao.

“Oh, thank Agni,” Piandao says. “Suo, get in there.” He looks at the phoenix-sparrow, still perched on Sokka's shoulder, and wrinkles his nose. "What is _that_ doing in here?"

"He's friendly," Sokka assures him. The sparrow chirps, as if to prove his point.

Piandao shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. The king can’t hold her off much longer."

A ringing crash sounds from inside the banquet hall, and Sokka flinches.

 _“Where is he?”_ shrieks a woman’s voice. _“Where is the boy?”_

“Calm down,” the king orders. Sokka wonders if he can afford to act so imperious when there’s a literal killer in his palace. “You’re making a scene.”

 _“I don’t_ **_care!”_ ** Another crash. _“Where is he?!”_

Piandao takes Sokka by the arm and hauls him towards the hall. “Your majesty? Suo has arrived.”

The doors fly open instantly. The king is standing in the doorway, his robes torn and singed. His hair is plastered to his cheeks and neck, and his crown lies askew. He smells like smoke.

 _“You,”_ he spits, eyes burning. “I will speak with you later, if she doesn’t take your miserable life first.” 

Sokka shrinks back, heart in his throat. 

“The boy has arrived,” the king calls over his shoulder.

Immediately, the racket inside calms down. The king seizes Sokka by the front of his robes and throws him into the hall with so much force he hits the floor face-first.

The doors slam shut behind him. Sokka groans and gets to his feet.

“Hello,” a girl’s voice says calmly. 

Well. This is it. Do or die.

He turns to face the ashmaker.

* * *

To his surprise, the ashmaker isn’t some giant fiery beast. She’s just—a girl, and a young one at that.

She’s sitting on a cushion, perfectly poised, legs folded beneath her and hands flat on her knees. She looks, for lack of a better word, _normal,_ which Sokka had not been expecting—especially since the rest of the room is completely trashed. The walls are scorched black. Broken vases litter the floor. Blankets hang from the ceiling rafters, burnt and torn. But among it all is the ashmaker, perfectly untouched and totally normal—save for the broken mask still fixed firmly upon her face.

More of the mask has come away, leaving her nose and mouth exposed. The only part still remaining is the part that covers her eyes. Her hair is almost completely down; some of it is still twisted up in a bun so loose it looks like one good wind would make it come undone.

The ashmaker looks at him as he sits down, directly across from her. “You. You let me in.”

Sokka nods. Can she see him, with that mask on? “Yes. I did.”

She tilts her head. “No one else has let me in in a very long time. I owe you a favour.”

Sokka raises his hands. “Oh, no, it’s—it’s fine, you don’t need to repay me—”

“I know,” she says, and her voice has taken on a sharper edge. Sokka gulps. “I repaid you. More than repaid you.”

“What?” Sokka racks his brain, trying to think of an instance where she helped him. “You mean when you gave me the bath tokens?”

She smiles. “Yes. I helped you more than you helped me. You only helped me once. I helped you twice; once to clean the tub, and once to clean the spirit.”

Sokka’s mouth goes dry. She’s right; if he hadn’t had the extra tokens she’d given him, he wouldn’t have been able to get the Face-Stealer’s bath going. “So...what? What does that mean?”

Her smile stretches wider. “It means _you_ owe _me_ a favour.”

 _“Uh.”_ Sokka’s heart just about stops. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. If you want blankets, or something to help you keep warm, I—”

“I want you to help me find my brother.”

Sokka’s train of thought abruptly screeches to a halt. “Your what?”

“My brother,” she repeats. “I know you’ve met him. His presence on you is stronger than on anyone else in the palace. Where is he?”

“I—I don’t…” Sokka flounders helplessly. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. What’s your brother’s name?”

“Zuko,” she replies. Sokka shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know a Zuko,” he says. The ashmaker’s mouth turns down in an ugly frown.

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying!” he protests. “I don’t know anyone named Zuko!”

The ashmaker clenches her fists. “You do. You _do._ I _know_ you do!”

“I don’t!”

The lanterns start flickering, and Sokka scrambles to his feet. “Look, I’m telling you, I don’t know your brother! I’d help you if I could, but I’ve never met—”

 _“Liar!”_ the ashmaker screams, and every single light in the banquet hall goes out.

Sokka yells and throws himself backwards. A flame flickers in the dark; it grows, brighter and brighter, until he realises with horror that it’s coming from her _mouth._

The ashmaker exhales, and a stream of bright blue fire comes roaring Sokka’s way. He dives to the side and starts running blindly, towards where he thinks the doors are.

“I can feel you, you know,” the ashmaker hums. She doesn’t sound crazy; she sounds _normal,_ and that’s the scariest part about it. Sokka’s hand hits the wall, and he starts fumbling along it, searching for the door. “I can feel your heat.”

The sound of her inhaling is Sokka’s only warning before another blue burst of fire races towards him. He ducks, heart hammering, and it fizzles out of existence just above his head. The phoenix-sparrow's claws dig into his shoulder, and it flaps its wings anxiously. _Same, buddy,_ Sokka thinks, still searching for the door.

His fingers touch something curved and pointed, and he nearly sobs for relief. The handle. He works the lock with shaking fingers, yanks it open—

“Oh, don’t _leave!”_ the ashmaker complains, and there’s the sound of cloth shifting as she gets to her feet. Something crackles, and Sokka’s hair stands on end. It almost sounds like—

“I’m just getting warmed _up!”_

Sokka throws himself out into the hallway as a blue-white bolt of lightning shoots over his head.

Holy _fuck._

He pushes himself to his feet and _runs._ Around him, the waiting spirits see something he doesn’t—something that makes them scream and drop their offerings, then start running for their lives. Behind him comes a crash, and another crackle, and—

Sokka sees the reflection of the ashmaker’s lightning in a decorative vase. He also sees the reflection of it hitting Master Piandao square in the back.

Piandao falls without a sound.

A gasp tears itself out of Sokka’s throat. The ashmaker lands in the hallway with a heavy thud. Sokka chances a glance over his shoulder; she’s crouched on the floor, lightning crackling at her fingertips.

“This game is _boring,”_ she says, sounding like a petulant child. “What do you say we stir things up?”

She throws both hands forward, closes them into fists and _pulls,_ like she’s yanking on two leashes. On either side of Sokka, a spirit gasps and falls. He can’t afford to stop, but he also can’t tear his eyes away; the spirits are turning pale as snow before his very eyes, their lips turning as blue as the ashmaker’s fire.

“Lightning’s pretty,” the ashmaker muses, “but it’s far too quick.” She tilts her head and grins at him. “I’d say this is much more satisfying. Don’t you agree?”

“You’re _crazy,”_ Sokka chokes out, stumbling down the stairs. "Insane."

The ashmaker smiles. Her mouth is the slash of a bloody knife.

“You’re no fun,” she says, and strikes.

* * *

Sokka’s too slow. He’s too _fucking_ slow.

His legs are sluggish and numb with panic, and they don’t respond when he wants them to. He crashes into walls and tumbles down stairs, all while the ashmaker follows him, jumping from balcony to balcony like she’s a goddamn acrobat.

Oh, yeah. And she keeps trying to kill him.

“Hold _still!”_ she snarls, throwing out a clawed hand. Sokka does the exact opposite, willingly throwing himself down the next flight of stairs. He looks back to see some poor sprite having the heat sucked out of him, all because of a misdirected attack.

“Get back here!” The ashmaker swings around a pillar, her fingers leaving scorch marks on the wood. “Get _back here!”_

“Stop _fucking_ trying to kill me, and then we’ll talk!” Sokka launches himself off the balcony railing and goes flying, catching onto a hanging banner by sheer luck. “What do you even _want?!”_

“I want my brother!” the ashmaker yells, wreathing both her hands in blue fire. “I want _Zuko!”_

“And I keep telling you, _I don’t know Zuko!”_ Sokka screams, so loudly he’s sure his throat will tear in half. 

_“Liar!”_ She lobs a handful of fire at him. _“Where—”_ Fire blast. _“—is—”_ Fire blast. _“—my—”_ Fire blast. _“_ — _brother?!”_

She punctuates her last word with a _lightning_ blast. Ooh, keeping things interesting.

Sokka grabs a vase and hurls it at her head. See, _he_ can keep things interesting too. “I don’t _know_ your fucking brother!”

“Yes you _do!_ I can _smell him on you!”_ Sokka sees the telltale movement of her hand and ducks out of the way, right before she tries to pull the heat out of his body. She snarls and tries again—Sokka throws himself into a side hallway, watching helplessly as a frog spirit falls to her attack.

“Where’d you go?” The ashmaker lands on the balcony railing and crouches there, turning her head. Half of what remains of her mask has cracked off, revealing a single golden eye. The other eye—her right eye—is still covered, so it looks like one of her eyes is normal and the other is a black circle. 

Sokka presses himself flat against the wall. He can’t keep this up. His legs are already burning, and he’s only gotten this far because of adrenaline. Besides, if they keep going at this rate, she’ll end up killing the whole palace.

Sokka takes a deep breath. He needs a plan.

* * *

“Hey!"

The ashmaker snaps her head around. _“There_ you are! I was beginning to think you’d _surrendered!”_

She finishes the last word with a punch of blue fire. Sokka dodges it. 

“You know what?” he yells up at her. “I just remembered—I _do_ know your brother!”

She freezes. “You do?”

Sokka nods solemnly. “Oh, yeah. Zuko. He looks just like you. Can’t believe I forgot about him before.”

It’s quite possibly the worst acting he’s ever done, but the ashmaker seems to buy it. As she flips down and lands in front of him, the last part of her mask cracks and crumbles away, revealing her face as a whole: pale skin, a pointed nose, red lips and golden eyes. She looks kind of familiar, but for the life of him Sokka can’t tell why.

“Where?” she asks eagerly. “Where’s my brother?”

“I’ll take you to him,” he promises. “Just stop trying to kill everyone.”

“Okay!” she agrees brightly, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“Come on, then.” He turns his back, despite every instinct in his body screaming that it’s a terrible idea, and starts leading her down the hallway. They’re on the fourth floor, he thinks, and maybe if he can just get her out of the palace they can—

His train of thought is rudely interrupted by the telltale crackle of lightning.

He throws himself against the wall just in time. The lightning whizzes past his nose, exploding against the far wall and sending several spirits into a scattering panic. The phoenix-sparrow on his shoulder squawks indignantly.

“What the _hell?”_ he yells at her. “You said you’d stop trying to kill everyone!”

“I’m _not_ trying to kill everyone,” she tells him. “I’m only trying to kill _you.”_

Sokka swears under his breath. She’s a fucking loopholer. He _hates_ loopholers.

“Oh, that reminds me,” the ashmaker says. “I’m trying to kill you.”

She throws another handful of blue fire, and the chase begins anew.

* * *

Plan A: trick the ashmaker into leaving the palace by telling her he’ll take her to her brother.

Plan A status: failed.

Plan B: trick the ashmaker into leaving the palace by leading her on a wild goose chase.

Plan B status: ongoing.

* * *

Sokka grabs the balcony and flips down to the second floor, panting. He’s almost there. He’s _so close._

It’s weird, though. The closer they get to leaving the palace, the calmer the ashmaker gets. She's been getting slower the further down they go, and her attacks are weaker, more predictable. By now, she’s only trying to kill him with fire—she hasn’t tried to use lightning or her little body-heat trick since they landed on the fourth floor.

She _is_ still trying to kill him, though. Which is obviously an issue.

She lands on the floor behind him, and he stumbles. His strength is flagging; even the most seasoned warriors can only keep this up for so long. He’s parkoured his way down _six floors,_ all while being chased by a crazy firebender.

All things considered, he’d say he’s doing pretty well.

“Aw, come on,” the ashmaker says, and she actually sounds _disappointed._ “Don’t tell me you’re tired _already._ We still need to decide a winner.”

“A _winner?”_ Sokka asks incredulously, deciding to ignore the petty part of him that points out that shelooks just as tired as he does. “What the— _no one_ wins! You don’t get your brother and I...probably die. Does that look like a situation with a winner to you?”

The ashmaker frowns. She really is young; she looks like she might be the same age as Katara. “There’s always a winner. If you’re weak, you lose. If you’re strong, you win. That’s how it works.”

Sokka stares at her. “Uh, no. It _really_ isn’t.” 

Her face contorts into a scowl. “You’re just trying to throw me off my game. Well, I’m not falling for it!”

He sighs and drops to the floor, dodging the fire blast. Is it just his imagination, or did that fire come out much weaker than it should have?

Huh. He’s already on the floor, and he can fit under the railing like this…

Sokka shrugs and rolls off the edge of the second floor, tucking and rolling when he hits the ground. Above him, the ashmaker swears.

Shortcuts. It’s all about the shortcuts.

* * *

The moment they cross the palace threshold, the ashmaker stops dead.

Sokka turns around. He's exhausted, but he hasn't really needed to run since they landed on the first floor. By the time he'd led her through the kitchens and out the side door, she'd been walking behind him silently, with only the occasional spark of fire at her fingertips.

But the second she steps on Ba Sing Se soil, she just...stops. Sokka watches as her face goes from tired to flat-out emotionless. A chill goes down his spine; now he's starting to get why she wore the mask.

"You okay?" What does he do in this situation? Does he help her? Does he leave her?

The ashmaker sways. She mumbles something under her breath, and steam starts pouring from her mouth. Sokka yelps and jumps back, in case she starts spitting fire.

She doesn't. He watches the steam rise above them. It splits into distinct pieces as it goes, which is...not the way steam typically tends to move. He squints at the pieces; they almost look _sentient,_ spiralling through the air determinedly, like...

An idea dawns on him, and he turns to the ashmaker.

"Are those..." His throat is dry. He swallows and tries again. "Are those the spirits you killed? Are they going back to their bodies?"

The ashmaker nods mutely. The relief that floods through Sokka is so all-consuming he actually stumbles; no one's dead. They're all going to live. 

"Suo! Over here!"

Sokka jerks up. Toph's standing at the end of the courtyard, a plain wooden carriage next to her.

"Toph!" Sokka runs towards her. He gives her a quick hug, fast enough that she doesn't see it coming. She splutters indignantly.

"The hell was that?"

"Affection," Sokka tells her, climbing into the carriage. 

"Disgusting."

"You loved it."

"I did _not."_ To Sokka's surprise, she shuts the carriage door without getting inside. Instead, she climbs up onto a seat jutting out at the back of the carriage, which explains why there's a window there.

"Uh, Toph?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Do you have an ostrich-horse? 'Cause I'm not sure if you noticed, but carriages kind of need animals to pull them."

Toph snorts. "You think this carriage was made for _ostrich-horses?"_

She pushes out with one hand, and the earth rumbles beneath them. Sokka grabs onto the seat for dear life as the carriage suddenly rockets forwards, buoyed on a moving current of rock.

 _"Toph!"_ he yelps. "Too fast! _Too fast!"_

She cackles, but lowers her hand, and the carriage slows down to a steadier pace. Sokka waits for his heart to do the same.

"Ostrich-horses," Toph scoffs. "They ain't got nothing on _this."_

"Okay, yes, I get it," Sokka grumbles. "Earthbenders are awesome, blah blah blah."

"Nah. Just _this_ earthbender." Toph puffs up her chest. Sokka rolls his eyes, but he can't resist the chuckle that passes his lips.

Toph nods down at the carriage. "We're heading to the station. By the way, your clothes are under the seat. Weapons, too."

 _"Awesome."_ Sokka reaches down under the seat, and yep, there's a secret compartment. "That is too cool. Who made this carriage?"

"Teo," Toph says, a note of pride in her voice. "Who else?"

"Fair." Sokka pulls on his clothes. When he slides his sword and boomerang into their places, he finally feels _right_ for the first time in days. He turns around to look at Toph, to ask how much longer till they reach the station...

And the words die in his throat.

Because behind them is the ashmaker, shuffling along the road. Sokka doesn't know what does it—it might be the hollow look on her face, or the way she reminds him a bit of Katara, or how she's dragging her feet like it's paining her to move. In any case, he leans out the window and shouts, "Hey! Over here!"

Toph freezes, and by extension, so does the carriage. "What are you doing."

"I'm calling her over," Sokka replies. "Don't start moving again, I want her to catch up."

"You _want her to—?!"_

"Toph, listen. I think...I think she's harmless. Well, not _harmless,_ but I'm pretty sure being in the palace was what made her crazy. The second we got out of there, she just shut down."

"Which, may I remind you, _is a good thing."  
_

"Shh. Just trust me."

The phoenix-sparrow—which is still somehow perched on Sokka's shoulder—hops up onto the windowsill to watch as the ashmaker draws closer. Her face is still completely neutral, and Sokka almost wants to find a mask just to shove it over her head.

He opens the carriage door as she comes closer. Toph twitches nervously.

"Suo," she whispers, as the ashmaker clambers in, "this is _not_ a good idea."

"Just _trust me."_ Sokka closes the carriage door, and Toph raises her hand. The carriage sets off again, winding through the streets of Ba Sing Se.

"The station is at the end of the Upper Ring." Toph's voice is barely audible over the sound of moving rock, like she's afraid the ashmaker will hear. The ashmaker in question is sitting across from Sokka, her face turned to the window. "I'll take you there, and... _her,_ if she wants to."

"Thanks, Toph," Sokka says, and he means it. "You didn't have to do this."

Toph grins, but it looks a little shaky. "Ah, come on. What are friends for?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> azula off the mask...what sins will she commit


	7. The Sixth Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lamppost jerks backwards minutely, like it's beckoning.  
> "You want me to follow?" Sokka guesses, and it nods. Well, it moves up and down, but he's pretty sure that's a nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the third time i've upped the chapter count. i have no justifications and many regrets.  
> (chapter title shamelessly stolen from the spirited away soundtrack)

The station is little more than a simple concrete platform, jutting out from the wall that separates the Upper and Middle Rings. There’s a bench there, painted in peeling green paint, and a sign that reads _‘the King’s Border’_. 

“Huh,” Sokka says, as he gets out of the carriage. It should be unnerving, how high they are above the ground—Toph had bended a pillar of rock beneath them to carry Sokka to the top of the wall—but it really isn’t. “Somehow, I was expecting more.”

“What’s it look like?” Toph asks. “No one I know has ever been here before.”

“It’s kind of lame,” Sokka says, as he steps onto the platform. The ashmaker follows suit. “Like, super lame. There’s a bench, and a sign that says ‘the King’s Border’, but that’s it.”

“Seriously?” Toph pulls a face. “That’s _pathetic.”_

“I know, right?” Sokka turns to close the carriage door, then hesitates. Closing it would—well, closing it would mean he can’t come back. 

Toph gives him a watery grin. “Hey, Snoozles. I can _hear_ your overthinking. You’ll be fine. _Kou’ll_ be fine.”

Sokka exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, I will. He will. Thanks, Toph.”

She nods at him, and then she’s gone, the carriage sinking back to earth. Sokka watches her go, then trudges to the platform and sits on the bench. The ashmaker sits beside him.

It takes a surprisingly short amount of time for the monorail to arrive. It glides over the Middle Ring, on tracks that just...float beneath the water. They’re not grounded on anything, they just _float,_ and it’s super weird.

The monorail is a linked chain of rectangular carriages, all of which have grey walls and a red-and-gold roof. Papered windows line it on all sides, and as it pulls into the King’s Border station, Sokka catches sight of a set of sliding doors on the first carriage.

So the King’s Border is either the first stop or the last, Sokka muses, as he pushes open the doors. Doesn’t matter; he’ll be going in the other direction anyway.

A shadowy man dressed in a ticket collector’s uniform steps forward. Sokka doesn’t try to look at his face; he gets the feeling that even if he does, he won’t see anything worth seeing. The ticket collector points a white-gloved finger at Sokka, the phoenix-sparrow, and…

He points at the ashmaker, standing just behind Sokka’s shoulder. Questioning.

Sokka turns to the ashmaker. “Do you want to come with us?”

She nods. Sokka hands his tickets over. “She’s with us. We’d like to get off at the sixth stop, please.”

The ticket collector takes Sokka’s tickets and tears them in half, dropping the pieces in a pouch tied around his waist. Sokka watches as the tickets turn to strips of useless paper, and it really sinks in that this is a one-way trip.

He boards the train, phoenix-sparrow on his shoulder and ashmaker at his back. It’s filled with shadowy almost-spirits, like the ticket collector; they’re not shapeless blobs like the street spirits, but they have no colour or life to them. They don’t scare Sokka, but they definitely send a few shivers down his spine.

He sits down on one of the monorail’s seats as the ticket collector slides the doors shut and slips through a curtain at the front of the carriage. With a groan, the monorail starts to move, setting off across the Middle Ring.

Sokka pushes at the paper window experimentally, and it slides open smooth as silk. He pokes his head out of the carriage; they really _are_ gliding over the water. To his surprise, the monorail makes both ripples and reflections in the water. He doesn’t know if that means it’s more spirit-y or less spirit-y, and he decides not to dwell on it.

He turns to the ashmaker, sitting silently beside him. “We’re gonna need a name for you, y’know. I’m not gonna keep calling you ‘the ashmaker’ forever.”

She doesn’t respond, but her eyes slide sideways. He takes that as an answer.

“Do you _have_ a name?”

She goes back to looking straight ahead, which isn’t a reply that Sokka can decipher. He shrugs.

“I’ll just have to call you No-Name,” he decides, and the faintest of smiles ghosts across her mouth. “Huh. It has a ring to it, don’t you think? No-Name...yeah, that works.”

They sit there in silence, him and No-Name and the phoenix-sparrow. A ragtag little crew of former enemies and friends.

* * *

Kou wakes up with a pounding head and a mouth that tastes like seaweed.

He groans softly as he sits up, blankets falling to his waist. 

Wait— _blankets?_

His eyes snap open, and he looks around wildly. He’s fucked up, hasn’t he, he’s gotten himself kidnapped—

He’s...in the palace library, lying down on a futon. Wan Shi Tong sits propped up against a nearby shelf, his head drooping to his chest.

Kou crawls over to the owl spirit. “Wan Shi Tong. _Wan Shi Tong._ Wake up.”

The owl opens his eyes. “You’re awake,” he notes mildly. “And alive.”

“I’m fine,” Kou snaps. “Where’s So—Suo? Is he okay? Did something happen?”

“You were unconscious,” Wan Shi Tong says calmly, and Kou grinds his teeth. 

_Thank you for stating the obvious,_ he wants to snark, but he knows that’s a bad idea. So he shakes his head and says instead, “Yes, I know, but what happened to _Suo?”_

“Suo left to return Iroh’s tile,” Wan Shi Tong says casually, as if he hasn’t just delivered some of the most heartstopping news of Kou’s short, short life. “Can you tell me what happened? How did you recover?”

Kou clenches his fists, but he _knows_ Wan Shi Tong. This is how the owl spirit operates; knowledge is more important to him than life. Once Kou gives him his answers, Wan Shi Tong will tell him why, exactly, Sokka set out on a suicide mission. 

“I was in darkness,” Kou says, his words clipped. “I heard Suo calling out to me, so I followed his voice. I woke up here, feeling better than ever.”

Wan Shi Tong nods slowly, his eyes gleaming with new knowledge. “Pure love,” he says, and Kou’s heart does something weird. “It broke Iroh’s spell.”

“Speaking of Iroh,” Kou forces out through gritted teeth, “why did Suo go to give him the tile? Does he know how dangerous Iroh is?”

His uncle is kind, Kou knows, but even the kindest spirits are dangerous to humans. Even if Iroh doesn’t intentionally attack, there’s still every chance he’ll do something by accident. Even a simple blessing of protection could end up burning Sokka from the inside out; no matter how much spirit food he eats, the fact remains that humans just can’t survive in the spirit world for long periods of time.

Wan Shi Tong stretches his neck. “Suo knew the risks. He chose to do it anyway, in hopes that it would help you recover.”

“But I’m recovered!” Kou gestures down at himself. He is, in fact, very much recovered. “So Suo...he’s putting himself in danger for _nothing?”_

Wan Shi Tong tilts his head. For a long, long moment, he says nothing at all, and then he delivers one of the worst sentences Kou has ever heard.

“Yes,” he says. “I suppose he is.”

* * *

Kou hovers at the door to Ozai’s chambers. Inside, the king is speaking to two sprites and a frog spirit.

“...I don’t care how long it takes,” he spits, and the spirits flinch back. “I want you to find him, and I want you to _kill him.”_

Kou’s stomach drops. There’s no doubt he’s talking about Sokka. As the spirits bow and murmur confirmation, he steps out into the open.

“Wait,” he says—well, more like commands—and every head swivels towards him. Just for a moment, he sees a hint of surprise in Ozai’s eyes.

“Ah,” he observes. “You’re still alive.”

“Alive and better than ever.” 

Ozai raises a hand to the kneeling spirits without even looking at them. “Your orders to find the human are put on hold. Return to your duties.”

The spirits glance at each other in surprise, but bow and begin to shuffle out of the room. As they pass Kou, they throw him strange looks; Kou doesn’t deny that, ever since waking up, he’s looked different. Warmer.

Ozai stands and places one hand on his phoenix’s back. The bird itself is crouched on the desk, rooting its beak through a pile of gold. Has Ozai really not noticed that it’s not the same phoenix, or has he just been away from his brother so long that he can’t even see the traces of Iroh’s magic?

“Since you’re still here, I have a task for you.” Ozai’s eyes are hard and flinty. “Find the boy. Bring him to me.” The corners of his mouth turn downwards. “Your sister is with him.”

Kou’s careful composure snaps, and he’s barely able to keep himself from lurching forwards. _“Azula?_ She—she’s still alive?”

“Of course she is,” Ozai scoffs, stroking the faux-phoenix’s neck. “Even in madness, she’s more capable than you ever were.” Something shifts in his face, and for a moment he looks almost regretful. “She has become an ashmaker. She tried to destroy the palace.”

 _Of course she would,_ Kou thinks. This place holds nothing but bad memories for her; he’s not surprised she tried to burn it down. 

“So.” Ozai turns back to look at him dead in the eyes. “Your orders are as follows: find the human boy. Find your sister. Bring them both back to me in chains.”

Kou braces himself for the tug in his gut that forces him to comply. To his surprise, it never comes; what happened to Ozai’s spell? Has it worn off, somehow?

If it has, he _can’t_ let Ozai know. For now, the king believes Kou is still his unwillingly loyal son.

He bows, short and shallow, and says, “You’re going to kill Suo’s companions. You’re going to kill them before I return.”

“I assumed that was a given.” Ozai turns away from him to rearrange a gold candelabra on his desk. “There is nothing you can do to stop me. Stealing the animals would be useless. Attacking me would be useless. And you would go after the boy anyway, would you not?” His lip curls in poorly-disguised disdain. “You always had a soft heart. It was your mother’s greatest weakness, and she has passed it on to you.”

Kou clenches his fists so hard his nails draw blood from his palm. He _knows_ Ozai is baiting him, and he won’t play along. “You say there’s nothing I can do to stop you. What if I struck you a deal?”

Ozai throws his head back and _laughs._ “With what? You have no leverage. You have no _power._ You are a weakling and a coward; it is in your nature.”

“I do have leverage.” Kou lets his eyes pointedly drift over to the faux-phoenix. “You still haven’t realised, have you? Something precious has been taken from you.”

Ozai stiffens. His eyes dart around the room, and he pales, as if realising for the first time that the three moles are missing. Slowly, so slowly, he turns to the phoenix.

He raises his hand, and the phoenix lifts its head. It lets out a low, plaintive cry, and Kou watches impassively as it begins to bubble and morph.

The phoenix splits apart into the three snuffling moles. Ozai stares at them, his face unreadable, his jaw quivering oh-so-slightly.

 _"You.”_ The word is quiet, and venomous, and it takes everything Kou has to not turn tail and flee. “You, traitor, shame of my flesh—what have you _done?”_

“I have done nothing,” Kou replies calmly. 

Ozai swells up like an angry fish, and the entire room darkens. His crown tilts, suddenly askew. His hair falls out of its tight topknot, hovering around his face like a hundred tiny snakes. 

_“Liar,”_ he snarls, sounding unnervingly like Azula. “Where did you take it? What did you _do?!”_

He stalks towards Kou with murder in his eyes. Smoke begins to curl from his mouth. Kou stands his ground.

“I,” he repeats, “have done _nothing.”_

Ozai snaps.

Fire bursts into existence around them, hot and bright and burning. Ozai lunges forward and seizes Kou’s arm with a claw-tipped hand. Blood begins to flow; it trickles down Kou’s forearm and sizzles on the carpet.

 _“Traitor!”_ Ozai screams, his jaw unhinging wide enough to swallow the moles, the phoenix and Kou himself. “You weaselling, scheming, good-for-nothing _traitor!”_

He lifts Kou into the air and digs his claws into his throat. Kou resists the urge to squirm away, despite the fact that every part of him is telling him to. 

_“Where did you take it?”_ Ozai spits, fire flicking off his tongue. The cold crackle of lightning starts to gather at his fingers. _“Where did you take my phoenix?”_

Kou stares down at him, and Ozai—Ozai looks _pathetic._ His hair hangs lank around his face. His cheeks are gaunt and bony. His eyes are wide with fear. He can spit all the fire he wants, but it won't take away the fact that he looks like he's _begging._

“I’ll bring back your phoenix,” Kou tells him. The fire doesn’t so much as flicker. “I’ll bring you back your phoenix, but only on one condition.”

Ozai laughs. It’s a terrifying sound, high and uncontrolled. “You want me to spare the boy’s companions. You want me to let him _go.”_

“Yes.” Kou meets his eyes. “When I return with Suo and the phoenix, you must give him a chance. One fair chance to save his sister and his friend; that’s all you have to do. Make it a game, if you like. A riddle. A challenge. Just give him a chance, and if he wins, then you _must let him go.”_

_“Never.”_

Kou shrugs. “Then you will never see your phoenix again. And, without your phoenix, the source of your power, how do you suppose you’ll rule as Phoenix King?”

Ozai’s hold on his neck tightens, and for a moment Kou is certain he’s going to die. But Ozai has always loved his power more than anything else, and slowly, so slowly, he lowers Kou to the carpet. Around them, the fire flickers and dies.

“State your terms.” Ozai’s voice is hoarse and ragged, like his throat has been scorched from the inside. 

“When I return with Suo, Azula and the phoenix, you give Suo a chance to save his companions.” Kou gives Ozai a hard, steely look. “A chance to return them to their original selves, exactly as they were just before they transformed. It must be fair, fair enough that Suo actually stands a reasonable chance of winning. And if he does, then you return his companions to normal. You destroy his contract, give him back his name, and let him and his companions go without attacking them any further.”

Ozai bristles. “You insolent—”

“Do you want your phoenix or not?” Kou raises his brow. “The summer solstice is tomorrow. We both know what happens after that. You can’t afford to waste your time searching for the bird.”

He watches as Ozai stiffens, every line of his body going rigid. Kou’s right, and he knows it; he has no choice but to agree to Kou’s terms.

“The boy gets one test,” he says, holding up a finger. _“One_ test. If he fails, he’s mine.”

Kou’s heart thuds in his chest, but he nods. “Agreed.”

“Very well,” Ozai grits out, turning away. “Go. _Go,_ you miserable little beast. Get out of my sight.”

Kou complies. He shifts into his dragon form and soars out the window, flying into the night.

* * *

Either the Middle Ring is much, much bigger than Sokka remembers, or the monorail is doing some weird distance-stretching thingamajig, because they're on the water for much longer than they should be.

Outside the train, the sky steadily gets darker. As they pass various stations and pull into others, the rest of the passengers begin filtering out; Sokka watches them go, kneeling up on the seat to stare out at the station platforms.

Most of them look like the one he'd come from: a simple concrete platform, with a bench and a sign. Some of the signs are written in characters Sokka can't read, but some have names like _'Firelight Fountain'_ and _'the Crystal Catacombs'_. That last one creeps Sokka out a bit; unlike the other stations, it has a staircase that leads down into darkness, flanked on either side by a spirit in dark green robes. These spirits have wide-brimmed hats pulled over their faces, and Sokka shivers as he remembers seeing a spirit with a hat like that on the rooftops, on his first night in Ba Sing Se. He wonders if they're the same kind of spirit; maybe they're brothers, or something.

Finally, they reach the end of the Middle Ring. Sokka expects them to pass over the top of the wall, but they don't—something shifts, and suddenly, instead of being on top of the wall, they're under it, moving smoothly along a railway raised about two metres above the ground. It's jarring, and Sokka decides not to think about how they'd apparently dropped about twenty metres in the span of, like, three seconds.

The Lower Ring is...not what he'd expected. He'd been envisioning a smaller, quieter, poorer version of the Upper Ring, but instead it's completely silent. The lights are on, but that's it—there are no spirits in the street, no sounds but the croaking of badgerfrogs and crickets. It's eerie, and Sokka doesn't like it.

The train finally comes to a halt in front of a small station. This one doesn't even have a bench, just a lamppost and a sign reading _'the Western Gate'_. The ticket collector, who's been standing in the corner of the carriage for the last hour or so, gestures at Sokka with one hand.

Sokka blinks. "Is this my stop?"

The ticket collector nods. Sokka rises from his seat, his hands suddenly trembling. On his shoulder, the phoenix-sparrow jerks awake. No-Name stands up behind him.

He slides open the door.

Sokka takes a deep breath and steps out onto the sixth station.

* * *

Nothing happens.

Well, nothing apart from Sokka wishing he had a cloak, or at least long sleeves. There's an unexpected chill in the air.

He shuffles into the light of the lamppost. Behind him, he hears the rasp of the ticket collector closing the door. With a soft hiss, the monorail sets off again, disappearing into the depths of the Lower Ring.

Sokka gulps and rubs his hands together, looking around. He's surrounded on all sides by shops and streets, all of which are lit by lanterns, but all of which are empty. Even the crickets have stopped their cricketing.

"So," he says to No-Name, "any idea where Iroh is?"

No-Name, predictably, doesn't answer.

A creak breaks the silence, like a rusty door being opened. Sokka jumps and whirls around, scanning their surroundings, but nothing has changed. The creak comes again, and this time it sounds like it's coming from...above?

Sokka looks up, and his mouth goes dry.

The lamppost is swaying of its own accord. As he watches, it _hops back,_ like it's fucking sentient. Actually, it probably is sentient, considering that it's, y'know. Moving. By _itself._

It swings around so that the lantern part is facing Sokka head-on. Somehow, that feels like its saying hello.

Sokka gulps. "Uh, hi."

The lamppost jerks backwards minutely, like it's beckoning.

"You want me to follow?" Sokka guesses, and it nods. Well, it moves up and down, but he's pretty sure that's a nod.

He looks at No-Name. She's staring at the lamp, but she's not attacking it, which is probably as good a sign of approval as any.

Sokka sighs. "Okay, then. Let's play Follow-the-Lamp."

* * *

The lamppost leads them through the Lower Ring, taking them down so many dirty alleyways that Sokka starts to wonder if it's trying to kill them via disease. Eventually, though, it hops out into an empty plaza, and Sokka follows.

His jaw drops. On the other side of the plaza is a giant building, by far the fanciest and cleanest thing he's seen in the Lower Ring so far. A massive stone staircase leads up to it, with lanterns placed at regular intervals along its steps. The lamppost creaks happily, if creaks can be considered happy, and begins hopping up the stairway in earnest.

Sokka follows a lot more cautiously. The building certainly looks inviting, what with its vivid colours and bright lights, but by now Sokka knows that _inviting_ doesn't always mean _good._ Still, the lamppost hasn't killed them yet, and it's not like he has any other ideas of where to go.

He reaches the top of the staircase. Stretching above the doorway of the building is a banner; _'the Jasmine Dragon'_ , it declares, in bold black characters. The lamppost's, well, _post,_ shrinks up into a tiny metal ring, leaving it as nothing but a simple lantern. The lantern then _jumps_ of its own accord, its metal ring catching on a hook hanging just beneath the banner. It sways there, giving off soft warm light.

"Ah, you're here!"

Sokka nearly jumps out of his skin. Standing in the doorway is the man from the office—Iroh, Kou's uncle, Ozai's brother, and conqueror of Ba Sing Se. He's holding a teapot in his hands, and he gives Sokka a sunny smile.

"I've been expecting you," he says. "Come in, come in. Would you like a cup of tea?"

* * *

Sokka would, in fact, like a cup of tea. He says as much, and Iroh chuckles as he pours him a cup of jasmine.

The Jasmine Dragon is a _tea shop,_ which is weird enough. From what Sokka's seen of the Lower Ring, there's no one here to actually, y'know. Drink the tea.

Apart from Iroh, of course. And now, Sokka.

Iroh sits down across from him, with his own steaming cup of tea in front of him. Sokka reaches into his pocket, closing his fingers around the wooden tile.

He clears his throat. "Excuse me, sir, but Kou stole this from you." He sets the tile on the table in front of him. "I came to give it back."

Iroh's eyes glimmer. He reaches out and picks up the tile, holding it carefully between two fingers. "I see," he murmurs, turning it so that the polished wood catches the light. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

"It's, uh, your White Lotus tile?" Sokka tries. When Iroh doesn't answer, he forges on. "I'm here to apologise for Kou. He wasn't...he was acting for his father. He's a good person, I swear. Could you lift the curse?"

Iroh chuckles. "I assure you, child, the curse—" He looks down at the tile, and his mouth drops open. "What? The protective spell is gone?"

Sokka winces. "Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of squished it." He coughs. "With my foot."

"What?" Iroh looks up sharply. "My spell had no physical incarnation. It was intangible; it could only have been broken by love. What did you squish?"

Sokka turns red. _Love?_ So Wan Shi Tong wasn't lying. "A black slug, sir. It was...gooey."

Iroh's eyes widen, and to Sokka's surprise, he lets out a loud, booming laugh. "Oh, dear Agni—a black slug? And you _squished it?_ My boy, do you have any idea what you've done?"

Sokka wraps his hands around his teacup. The warmth reminds him of Kou; it's comforting. "No? Was it bad?"

"Far from it." Iroh grins at him. "That slug was not _my_ spell. It was my brother's."

"Your _brother's?"_ Sokka gapes at him. "You mean the _king?_ Why would he—why did he put a spell on Kou?"

Iroh sips his tea. "I mentioned it when we spoke last; Kou is bound to his father's will. I mean that literally; that slug would have forced him to do anything Ozai ordered. You did not just save him from _my_ spell, child; you freed him from his father."

Something untwists in Sokka's chest. "You mean—he's free? He doesn't have to take orders from his father anymore?"

Iroh grimaces. "In a way. You broke Ozai's spell, but he still holds jurisdiction over Kou's original name; even _I_ do not remember it. When Ozai wipes a name from the palace records, he also wipes it from the memory of everyone affiliated with the palace. As no one outside the palace would have known Kou’s real name, his only hope is Ozai willingly giving it back—and we both know he will not.”

Sokka’s stomach sinks. “So he’s free, but...not really.”

Iroh nods. “He is no longer _forced_ to follow Ozai’s orders, but he is still under Ozai’s power. At the very least, he can now act of his own free will. You did a good thing by killing that slug, my boy. My nephew is...he is a good person. He does not deserve to be under his father’s thumb.”

“Damn right he doesn’t,” Sokka says hotly, taking a gulp of tea. He and Iroh sit in silence, watching the steam dissipate from their cups.

Finally, Iroh stands. He gives Sokka an appraising look. "Do you know how to play Pai Sho?"

* * *

Sokka does not know how to play Pai Sho. Iroh teaches him, patiently explaining the rules as he points out tiles and squares. It's nice, to finally know all the rules before he's expected to play; the rest of the spirit world hasn't offered him that luxury. No-Name drifts over from her place in the corner to watch, and they're both surprised when she reaches out and moves a tile for Sokka.

Sokka looks at her. "You know how to play Pai Sho?"

She glances at him, then pulls up a chair and sits down. She taps the board and stares pointedly at Iroh. _Your move._

Huh. Sokka looks between them. A slow smile is spreading across Iroh's face, and he leans forward and moves his own tile.

No-Name counters. Iroh defends. For a good ten minutes, the only sound in the entire tea shop is the clicking of wooden tiles being set down on the board.

Finally, Iroh sits back, a satisfied smile on his face. He's won, but only barely; No-Name is _good._

"It has been a very long time since I met a Pai Sho player as good as you," Iroh says, nodding respectfully at No-Name. "It was the White Lotus spirit; when I beat him, he gifted me the tile that Kou stole from me."

Sokka looks down at the board. He hadn't noticed earlier, still trying to keep up with the basic rules of the game, but Iroh's winning move had placed the lotus tile dead in the centre. 

Something about seeing that tile—the tile that had wreaked so much havoc—suddenly reconciles _this_ Iroh with _that_ Iroh: this warm, tea-loving spirit is also the one who cast protection spells powerful enough to kill, who laid siege to this city for six hundred days. Sokka's mouth goes dry.

"Iroh," he says quietly, "you're a powerful spirit. Is there anything you could do for my sister and my friend?"

Iroh sighs, stacking up the Pai Sho tiles as he prepares to set the board for another game. "I'm sorry, Suo. If it was Ozai's spell, specifically, then yes, I could have. But they were not transformed by Ozai; they were transformed by _the city._ You forget that Ba Sing Se is just as alive as any other spirit. You have seen it wake up at night, have you not?"

Sokka stares down into his tea. It's gone cold by now, but he's not bothered to ask Iroh for another cup. "So they're stuck. I'm stuck. How do I...?"

He trails off helplessly. It's then that he realises: he never even had a plan. He had a plan to survive the spirit world, to get into the palace, to rescue Kou...but he never had a plan to transform Aang and Katara back. Kou had assured him it was possible, but _how?_

"You can challenge the king to a game." Iroh looks down at his tea and exhales, and steam immediately starts rising from its surface. "There is every chance he will say no, but you do have something he cares about." He nods at the phoenix-sparrow, dozing on the tabletop. "That phoenix is a physical manifestation of his power. It is his closest connection to Agni, the sun spirit. If he goes without it for too long, his connection to Agni weakens, and with it his power. When he realises he has lost it, he will do almost anything to get it back."

Sokka stares at the sparrow. It's so small and innocent, tiny enough to fit into the palm of his hand. To think that the Phoenix-King's power had been snuggling up against his cheek on the train ride here...it almost makes him want to laugh.

"So I challenge the king to a game," he says, and Iroh nods. "What kind of game?"

Iroh shrugs. "There is no way he will let you set the terms. You will have to play by his rules; the best you can do is ensure that he gives you a fair chance. Be careful with your words; if you are not specific enough, he will likely kill you and your companions even if you win."

Sokka shivers. Beside him, No-Name reaches out and plucks the Pai Sho tiles out of Iroh's hands. She begins to set the board.

The phoenix-sparrow suddenly lifts its head. It stares at the door and lets out a single, high-pitched chirp. Sokka doesn't pay it any attention, until—

A loud _thud_ sounds from outside the shop, and Sokka jumps. His hand flies to his boomerang, but Iroh says, "Wait."

Sokka looks at him. He's staring at the door, a small smile on his lips.

"You have a visitor," he tells Sokka. "Go ahead. Open the door."

Sokka gets to his feet and approaches the door slowly. No matter how nice Iroh seems, he can't forget that even nice spirits can turn on him. There could be a monster outside that door. Or those freaky spirits with the hats he'd seen standing outside the Crystal Catacombs. Or—

He opens the door, and all other thoughts go right out the window.

 _"Kou!"_ He launches himself at the spirit, and Kou staggers back, his arms coming up to wrap around Sokka's waist. Sokka buries his nose in Kou's neck, trying desperately not to whimper.

He's okay. He's _okay._ Kou's alive and he's _okay._

"Hey," Kou murmurs, and a broken sob pulls itself out from Sokka's throat. He turns his head and presses a kiss to Kou's cheek; he's warm, now, not too cold and not too hot, the perfect temperature for warding off the late night chill.

"I was worried about you," Sokka whispers, and Kou hugs him tighter. "You have no idea. You were—you were bleeding _so much,_ and you wouldn't wake up, and—"

"Sokka." Kou leans back to look him in the eyes. "I'm fine. See?" He takes Sokka's hand and places it over his heart. It beats steadily beneath Sokka's palm, strong and unfaltering. "I'm _fine._ Better than fine. You saved me." His eyes soften. "Thank you."

Sokka shakes his head. There's a tangled knot of emotions in his throat, blocking off his voice. He hugs Kou again, soaking in his warmth.

A voice comes from behind them, fondly amused. "Hello, Nephew."

"Uncle." Kou bows his head, which is about as much respect as he can show when Sokka's clinging to him like a baby hog-monkey. "I am deeply, truly sorry. You invited me into your home and I betrayed your trust. It was wrong, and I apologise."

Iroh chuckles, stepping forward to wrap both him and Sokka in a hug. "Apology accepted. Would you like some tea?"

"Very much," Kou says gratefully. They start to unwind from their hug, but the scuffing of a foot against stone stops them in their tracks.

Sokka cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. No-Name is standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed on Kou.

Kou staggers backwards. He lets out a shaky, shuddering breath, abruptly letting go of Sokka and Iroh.

 _"_ _Azula,"_ he whispers.

It's like he's pulled a lever. No-Name—Azula?—comes to life the way Ba Sing Se does at night. Her entire face transforms—it's like a fire's been lit behind her eyes, sparking her back to life. She grins at Kou, wide and bright.

"Zuzu!" she says. "So good to see you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing the first half of the chapter: they can have a little kou pov. as a treat.


	8. The Summer Solstice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka’s hands start shaking, very slightly. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I thought this was just about getting Aang and Katara out. When did this turn into a ‘destroy the king’ situation?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i swear i thought this was the last chapter. i SWEAR.  
> ...but then it got really out of hand and this happened. so: chapter count upped for the fourth time! What an achievement.
> 
> also, heads up: from this point on, the fic starts to deviate from the movie. like. it deviates a LOT.
> 
> edit: holy SHIT i was lurking on tumblr and?? this fic has art now?? im crying oh my god  
> [Incredible art by casadefreewill on tumblr](https://casadefreewill.tumblr.com/post/618927332496916480/sketch-dump-mostly-inspired-by-azenkis-atla-x)
> 
> if y'all have tumblr come scream at me my @ is azenkii (2 i's!! the 2 i's are v important) and i have absolutely no content there but! it exists!

Kou looks like she's just punched him in the stomach. "What did you just call me?"

Azula purses her lips. "Have you forgotten me so soon, brother dear? I called you _Zuzu,_ you big oaf."

Kou stares at her. "Why would you call me that?"

That's something Sokka's been wondering, too. Apart from the obvious fact that Kou is apparently Azula's _brother._ How do you get _Zuzu_ from _Kou?_

Azula looks at Kou like he's insane. She puts a finger to her mouth in a mockery of thinking. "Hmm, let me see...maybe because your name is _Zu-_ ko?"

The effect is instantaneous. Kou lurches forwards, like he's been hit in the square of his back. He drops to his hands and knees and stays there, gasping, nails scraping against the stone. 

"Kou!" Sokka moves to help him, but Iroh's hand shoots out and wraps around his arm in an iron grip.

"Stay back," he warns, as Sokka turns wide eyes on him. "He may start spitting fire."

Kou makes a high, keening sound, and Sokka whirls back to him. He's fallen back to sit on his feet, swaying slightly from side to side. He wraps his arms around his middle and lets out a choking gasp.

To Sokka's horror, he starts— _flickering._ One moment, his face is human, all pale skin and dark hair; the next, it's a dragon snout, with deep red scales and bright gold eyes. Fire stutters to life around him. Sparks and smoke come from his nose and mouth in short, aborted bursts.

Sokka looks up at Azula. She's staring at Kou, eyes wide, hands hovering as if she's not sure if she should help him.

"What did you _do?"_ he roars at her, and her eyes snap up to meet his. 

"You think _I_ did this?" she snarls, throwing out a hand to gesture at her brother. "How was I supposed to know he'd lost his name?"

Kou curls over and _screams._ He presses a hand to the scar on his face like it's being burned into him all over again. A shattered kind of sob breaks out of him, and he sucks in a breath like it's physically painful. 

And then he goes abruptly, totally silent.

His hand drops off his face and falls into his lap. It looks like he's cradling something. Sokka throws off Iroh's hand and drops to his knees at Kou's side.

"Kou? Kou, look at me." He crouches down and takes Kou's chin in his hands. There are tear tracks on his cheeks.

Something blooms into existence between Kou's cupped hands. Sokka looks down; ribbons of fire are weaving through the air, forming something small and concise.

It's a character: 祖. Zu. 

When Kou raises his eyes to look at Sokka, they _burn._

"Zuko," he whispers, his voice cracked and hoarse. "My name is Zuko."

* * *

"Zuko," Sokka repeats. It falls off his tongue, leaving a smoky aftertaste behind. "Zuko. That's a nice name."

Zuko nods mutely, still staring down at the fiery character in his hands. Slowly, very slowly, another character forms beside it, one that Sokka's familiar with: 寇, Kou. Together, they spell out: _Zuko._

Zuko tentatively curls his fingers, and the characters disappear into smoke. He takes a deep breath, and says again, "Zuko. _Zuko."_

It's like he's afraid that his name will disappear, now that the character's gone. He repeats it again: "Zuko."

"Zuko," Sokka echoes, taking his hands. They're shaking. "Hi, Zuko."

Zuko smiles shakily. "Hi, Sokka."

Sokka grins at him. Zuko lets out a watery laugh, shaking his head. "Agni. I—I never thought—" He looks up at Azula, still hovering in the doorway. "Well, for starters, I didn't think you were still alive."

"I'm offended, Zuzu," Azula says, and Zuko twitches at the nickname. Sokka doesn't know if it's the shock of hearing his missing character being repeated twice in one word, or if it's just because _Zuzu_ is a gods-awful nickname. "You know I've never let anything slow me down for long."

"I have a question," Sokka says, and both siblings turn to him. Now that he's looking at them side-by-side, it's obvious they're related. "Actually, I have three questions. One: why does Azula remember your name? Two: why do _you_ remember _Azula?_ And three: Azula, why were you in a waking coma?"

Azula scoffs. "Humans. You really waste your time on questions as simple as _those?_ Aren't the answers obvious?" She holds up three fingers and starts ticking them off. "I remember Zuzu's name because, obviously, I wasn't part of the palace anymore when it got wiped. Zuzu remembers me because our father is a cold-hearted bastard who wanted to use me as a warning." She looks at Zuko for confirmation, and he nods. "And finally, I was, as you say, _'in a waking coma'_ because I was _unmoored."_

She says the word _unmoored_ like it should be written in bold and underlined twice. Sokka stares at her like she has two heads—and for all he knows, she does. The second head's probably floating around in a jar somewhere.

"Okay, I'll bite," he says. "What does 'unmoored' mean?"

Azula looks at Zuko incredulously. "Zuzu, are you _sure_ you want this one? He seems awfully stupid."

Zuko flushes, but his grip on Sokka's hand tightens. "He got here three days ago, Azula. Cut him some slack."

Sokka's still reeling over the fact that Zuko all but said he _wanted_ him when Azula flips her hair over one shoulder. "When a spirit is cut from their home," she says, very slowly, like she's explaining it to a particularly daft child, "they become unmoored. A spirit's identity boils down to three things: their name, their home and their power."

"Think of it like if you took a saltwater spirit to the desert," Zuko suggests. "Without their home—the ocean—they'd get weak, right? They'd grow restless, and catatonic."

"Uh. Sure?" Sokka doesn't really get what they're saying, but he nods along anyways.

"That's what happened to Azula," Zuko says. "She was banished from her home, the palace, and she became unmoored. The longer a spirit is unmoored, the worse their condition becomes. Azula's been banished for three years. So: waking coma."

"When I returned to the palace," Azula says, and her face turns sour, "it...was too much. I wasn't supposed to—to get that involved, that quickly. And I was still banished and unwelcome, so in a way—in a way, the palace itself was trying to push me out."

"So _that's_ why you went crazy," Sokka notes, and she nods jerkily. "Okay, last question."

_ "What?"  _ Azula snaps irritably. Oop. Looks like share-your-feelings time is over.

"Can we go inside?" Sokka asks. "It's _freezing_ out here."

* * *

They go inside. Iroh serves them tea, which is nice, and then apologises to Azula for not remembering her, which is...less nice.

It's very awkward, actually.

"You are my niece," Iroh says gently, seemingly unaware that he's only digging himself a deeper grave. "You should not have been so easy to forget; it was a failure on my part."

"Easy to forget." Azula clutches her cup stiffly; she hasn't touched her tea. "Right."

The minutes stretch on in painful silence.

"I'm going to sleep." Azula sets her cup down on the table with more force than is strictly necessary. A few drops slosh over onto the table. "Don't disturb me."

"Sleep?" Sokka asks, surprised. Azula uncurls her legs and pads off to the corner, where she plonks herself down on the cold hard floor and closes her eyes. "We're staying overnight?"

"Of course," Zuko says, from where he's feeding the phoenix-sparrow tiny bits of bread. "Tomorrow's the summer solstice. We need to plan."

"Uh huh." Plans. Right. Sokka understands plans; he's the plan guy. But...

"What does the summer solstice have to do with anything?"

Zuko pauses. The phoenix-sparrow chirps impatiently, pecking at his fingers. "Oh. Sorry, I should've remembered you don't know." He points at the phoenix-sparrow. "Do you know what this represents, for Ozai?"

Sokka eyes the sparrow. "It's his power, right? His, uh...his sun connection? Or something?"

Zuko smiles, and Sokka's heart does a flip. "Close enough. The phoenix is his connection to the sun spirit. As the days grow longer leading up to the summer solstice, the phoenix gets bigger. When it first touches the sun on the day of the solstice, it bursts into flames."

Sokka stares at the phoenix-sparrow, trying to imagine it going up in smoke—literally. "Because that's totally normal. Flaming birds. Love to see it."

"When the phoenix burns, Ozai's power is at its highest," Iroh says softly, staring down into the dregs of his empty teacup. "At sunset on the solstice, the flames go out, and it will die. As the moon rises, the baby phoenix is reborn from the ashes, to begin growing again with the sun. It grows all the way up until the next solstice, where it will, once again, burn and die."

"Fun." Sokka swallows. "So, uh, if Ozai's power is gonna be at its height, why exactly are we going to confront him?"

Zuko smiles grimly. "For my father, the solstice is a double-edged sword. During the day, he's the most powerful he's ever been. But between sunset and moonrise, when the phoenix is dead and hasn't yet been reborn..."

"His power is weak?" Sokka guesses, and Zuko shakes his head.

"No," he says, his voice soft but firm. "He loses his power completely."

* * *

Sokka gapes at Zuko over the table. "He—what?"

"He is completely powerless," Iroh says heavily. "For a very, very short period of time, he is weaker than the weakest spirit."

"But—then we can just...wait till then, right?" Sokka spreads his hands. "We wait till sunset, fly in and bam! Get Aang and Katara, then hightail it out of there."

“It’s not that simple,” Zuko says, frowning down at the phoenix-sparrow. “My father knows I’ll have found you by now. If we don’t return tomorrow, he’ll hunt us down. I’m _much_ easier for him to track compared to you and Azula, and with the solstice’s power he’ll find us in no time.”

“Oh.” Sokka’s mouth is dry as a desert, even though he’s just had a whole cup of tea. “Okay. So we have to go back tomorrow, even though it’s dangerous as all hell, or we die.”

“Pretty much,” Zuko agrees. 

“That’s...not ideal.”

Iroh chuckles. “No, it is not. But—” His eyes gleam. “We _do_ have an advantage. The phoenix only begins to burn when it comes into contact with sunlight. Ozai’s power will still increase thanks to the solstice, but as long we keep the phoenix out of the sun, he will not reach his full power.”

“Okay, okay, hold on.” Sokka holds up his hand. “We still need to figure out how to get Aang and Katara back. I can challenge Ozai to—”

“Oh, I already did that,” Zuko interrupts casually. “I told him I’d bring back the phoenix in exchange for you getting a chance to rescue them. When we get back tomorrow, he’ll test you. If you pass, you, your sister and your friend all get to leave.”

Sokka stares at him. “Did you...not think this was important information?”

Zuko flushes. “Sorry. I got distracted.” His gaze flickers meaningfully towards Azula, sleeping quietly in the corner.

“Alright, then.” Iroh stands and stretches, then begins gathering their cups. “Sokka passes his test. We wait till sundown. And then, when Ozai is powerless, we strike.” He winks at Zuko. “It is a risky plan, Nephew. I like it.”

He bustles off into the back of the shop. Sokka and Zuko listen as he washes the cups, then places them back in the kitchen cupboards. Soon enough, there’s the soft thudding sound of Iroh ascending stairs. He’s going to sleep, then.

Sokka turns to Zuko. “What did he mean by ‘we _strike’?”_ He feels like he’s missed a very crucial part of the conversation, despite being present for all of it. “I thought the plan ended with me passing the test.”

“Oh, no,” Zuko says. “We’re deposing my father.”

...Sokka _cannot_ have heard that right. 

“We’re what now?”

“Deposing my father,” Zuko says patiently. “He’s a tyrant. He needs to go down.”

“Okay, yeah, not disagreeing,” Sokka says, his voice remarkably calm considering how much he’s screaming internally. “But can I ask: _how?”_

“Simple,” Zuko says. “We kill the phoenix.”

Sokka stares at him. “Say that again.”

“We kill the phoenix,” Zuko repeats. “If we scatter its ashes before moonrise, it won’t be able to reform. Ozai will be left powerless forever, unless he somehow manages to scrounge up every last ash and put them together in time for the next solstice. If the phoenix misses a year in the cycle, it dies. Permanently.”

Sokka’s hands start shaking, very slightly. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I thought this was just about getting Aang and Katara out. When did this turn into a ‘destroy the king’ situation?”

Zuko reaches out and places his hand over Sokka’s. “Look, I know this is unexpected. But it’s the first—and probably only—opportunity we have to depose my father. I don’t think he’s ever been separated from the phoenix before.”

“But—” Sokka looks down at their joined hands. “But I—Zuko, I want to help. I do. But I also just want to go _home._ I want my sister and my best friend back. I want to get out of this city. If I manage to get them human again, and we finally have a chance to all leave alive...I don’t—I _can’t—_ I can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

Zuko’s eyes are downcast. “I understand.”

He sounds so resigned that Sokka’s heart breaks, just a little. He shifts a little closer, opening his mouth, but—

Zuko withdraws his hand and stands. “Goodnight,” he says softly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He turns and moves over to Azula, crouching down and scooping her into his arms. She doesn’t so much as stir as he carries her towards the back of the shop. 

Sokka watches him go, his hand still tingling from the loss of Zuko’s warmth.

* * *

Breakfast is awkward. Azula’s avoiding Iroh, and Zuko’s avoiding Sokka, and not even the plate of dumplings that Iroh serves cuts through the tension in the air. 

They’re damn good dumplings, though.

Sokka finishes first, to no one’s surprise. He excuses himself from the table under the guise of going to pack his bag. They all ignore that he doesn’t have a bag.

For lack of something better to do, Sokka plops down in the corner and starts sharpening his sword. He doesn’t know what Ozai’s challenge is going to be, and he wants to be prepared.

The soft scrape of a chair being pushed back makes him look up. Zuko stands from the table and, to both Sokka’s relief and horror, makes a beeline straight for him.

Sokka stands up to meet him as he approaches. Zuko stops in front of him and clears his throat.

Sokka swallows. “Zuko...what I said last night, I—”

Zuko holds up his hand. “Sokka, listen to me.” He places his hand on Sokka’s shoulder. It’s completely innocent, but Sokka’s cheeks still burn. “It was unfair of me to assume you’d want to help. It’s completely justified for you to want to leave as soon as possible; if I was you, I’d want to leave too.” He hesitates, faltering a bit. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I do.” He actually _bows,_ then, and Sokka scrambles to get him to stand upright.

“Zuko!” he hisses. “That’s not what I meant! You don’t have to— _you_ don’t have anything to be sorry for either!”

“I beg to differ.”

“Then beg,” Sokka sniffs, and Zuko’s eyes snap up to his in surprise. At the table, Azula snickers.

A slow smirk spreads across Zuko’s face. “Well, if you insist…”

He starts to get down on his knees. Sokka yelps and grabs his shoulders, yanking him back up.

“What the— _Zuko, no, I didn’t mean it literally—ZUKO!”_

* * *

(Azula rolls her eyes and returns to her dumplings. The flirting makes her want to gag, but at least Zuzu’s embarrassment is good entertainment.)

* * *

Iroh sends them off with a smile and a Pai Sho tile pressed into Sokka’s palm. He turns it over: the fire tile. Azula catches sight of it and snorts.

“What?” Sokka asks defensively, stashing the tile in his pocket. Azula shrugs.

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s just that Uncle isn’t subtle at all.” 

She gives a cough that sounds suspiciously like ‘Zuko’. Sokka ignores her.

“You’re sure you can’t come with us?” he asks Iroh, for the fiftieth time. And, for the fiftieth time, Iroh grimaces and shakes his head. 

“I cannot,” he says gravely. “The palace is completely under Ozai’s jurisdiction. For me to set foot on it would be betrayal of the highest kind.”

“You were literally plotting to overthrow him last night,” Sokka points out. “And this morning. And, like, five minutes ago.”

“That’s different,” Azula says, clambering onto Dragon-Zuko’s back. “When we overthrow him, it will be because we fought him. We earned it. It’ll be an honourable deposal. Walking right onto his land when you’re clearly not supposed to is the opposite of honourable.”

“You mean, like you did?” Sokka asks, and Azula doesn’t answer.

“Just get on the dragon, human,” she says, which is how Sokka knows he’s won. When Azula has to revert to calling him ‘human’, it means she really _has_ run out of insults.

The phoenix-sparrow is tucked firmly in Azula’s pocket, still sleeping. As Zuko prepares to lift off, the first rays of sun begin to peek over the horizon.

“Good luck,” Iroh says. He bows to them, and Sokka bows back. Azula remains stubbornly stiff-backed.

Sokka nearly nudges her to make her bow, but then Zuko’s off, and _holy shit_ he did _not_ think dragons were this hard to ride. Even with the makeshift saddle they’ve fixed onto Zuko’s back, it’s hard to hang on, and the early morning chill isn’t doing them any favours.

As they soar over the Lower Ring, a thought occurs to him.

“Hey, I have another question,” he says, and Azula groans.

“What is it _this_ time?” she snaps. Sokka points at Zuko’s head.

“Why can _he_ turn into a dragon, but not you?”

“He’s overcompensating for something else,” she says sweetly. “If you know what I mean.”

“What?” The words take a minute to process, and when they do, Sokka chokes. _“I—”_

Zuko lets out a distinctly sullen-sounding grumble. Azula pats his horn.

“Oh, lighten up, Zuzu,” she says, a sly smile stretching her mouth. “I’m sure Sokka doesn’t mind. Do you, Sokka?”

Sokka buries his face in his hands. Tui and La, his cheeks are on fire. “I’m not talking about this.”

“He doesn’t mind,” Azula tells Zuko. 

Zuko smacks her over the head with the end of his tail. Sokka approves.

* * *

By the time they land at the border to the Upper Ring, the sun is high above them. It’s official: the Middle Ring stretches distance when you’re travelling. 

Zuko shifts back into human form, and Sokka catches him as he staggers. He looks _exhausted,_ sweat beading across his forehead and breath coming in heaving pants. 

“You okay?” Sokka asks, alarmed. Zuko nods, leaning heavily on his arm.

“Just...gimme a minute,” he wheezes, sitting down heavily on the street. Sokka glances around them; the city is as empty as ever, but it’s still nerve-racking to be out in the open. Azula taps her foot impatiently. She keeps one hand raised in front of her chest, like she’s expecting an attack at any minute. In her breast pocket, something small stirs; the phoenix-sparrow’s awake. Azula pushes it back down, whispering things to it that Sokka can’t hear.

Finally, Zuko’s breathing slows down to something resembling normal, and he stands. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Azula sets off immediately, taking the lead. Sokka lets Zuko lean on him as they walk, more sedately, behind her.

For a few minutes, there’s nothing but the soft sound of their footsteps on stone. 

Sokka clears his throat and glances sideways at Zuko. “So, uh,” he starts, fiddling with his fingers, “before, when I asked why you could turn into a dragon…”

Zuko flushes bright red. _“No!_ The reason Azula can’t turn into a dragon is because she was unmoored before she got old enough to shift, so she just...never learnt how. If she returns to the palace, she’ll probably be able to shift by the winter solstice.”

“Okay,” Sokka says, ignoring the slight rush of relief that comes with the denial of Azula’s accusation. He should _not_ be caring about that. Gods. Get it together, Sokka.

( _No,_ snipes his fifteen-year-old hormonal brain.

 _Yes,_ Sokka replies, scowling.)

He has another question, one that he doesn't dare voice out loud— _what happened to Azula?_ Wan Shi Tong had said she’d gone mad; _why?_ She seems perfectly lucid and rational now. And, for that matter, why had Zuko’s presence shifted her back to consciousness?

But if he asks Zuko any of these questions, he knows Azula will hear. The city’s too quiet for her to _not_ hear. And it’s her secret to tell; if she doesn’t want to tell him, she won’t.

So he doesn’t ask, and they walk on in silence.

* * *

It takes a surprisingly short time for them to reach the palace. Azula leads them through shortcuts and over rooftops, and before Sokka knows it they’re standing in front of the palace’s stone courtyard.

Ozai is waiting for them.

He stands with his hands folded in front of him. Behind him are a tank and a cage; inside the tank, dozens of black koi fish swim around lazily. The cage is full of chittering lemurs, all of which have arrow markings.

A chill goes down Sokka’s spine. He’s pretty sure he knows what the challenge is going to be, and he doesn’t like it. 

He also finally realises why Zuko and Azula had been so adamant on walking through the Upper Ring instead of flying all the way: they didn’t want to give Ozai an early warning. From the way he looks at his own children, Sokka wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to shoot them out of the sky.

Ozai’s gaze lands on Azula first. His lip curls, and Sokka’s sure he’s going to say something, but he moves on to Zuko without a single word.

“I see no phoenix.” His words are cool and clipped. “My conditions were clear. No phoenix, no trial.”

Zuko straightens. “I have the phoenix. You will have him when Suo’s challenge is over.”

 _“No,”_ Ozai snaps. “Hand me the phoenix, or he gets no trial. I will not ask a second time.”

Sokka and Zuko exchange a vaguely panicked look. This is a problem; they didn’t plan on losing custody of the phoenix before Sokka’s challenge had even begun.

Azula steps forward, like a _crazy person,_ and fishes the phoenix-sparrow out of her pocket. “Here it is,” she says brusquely, all but flinging it in Ozai’s direction. Sokka winces as it lands against Ozai’s chest with a squeak and a soft _thwap._

Ozai’s face contorts. He peels the sparrow off his chest like it’s a piece of slime and dangles it in front of his face.

“You insolent little _brats,”_ he snarls, throwing the phoenix aside. By some miraculous happenstance, it lands in the shade of the palace walls. “You _dare_ bring me vermin as proof of my power? You _dare_ insult me so?”

“Yes,” Azula says coolly. Her voice and eyes are steely, and Sokka shudders back a bit. “Because if you weren’t so blind, perhaps you’d see the magic that so-called _vermin_ is soaked in.” She nods at the phoenix-sparrow. “Look closer, _Father._ What do you see?”

Sokka kind of wants to grab her by the shoulders and scream, _what the hell are you doing?_ They don’t _want_ Ozai knowing where or what the phoenix is. She’s just given up their only advantage.

Azula’s gaze slides sideways towards him, like she can hear his thoughts. She flicks her eyes meaningfully towards the koi fish tank and the lemur cage, and Sokka thinks, _ah._

If Ozai thinks he doesn’t have the phoenix, then they all die, right here and now. Right. Sokka had forgotten that bit.

Ozai shoots Azula a suspicious glare, but he stalks over to the phoenix-sparrow anyway. It’s stirring feebly on the ground, letting out a series of weak chirps that tug at Sokka’s heartstrings.

Ozai crouches down next to it. Sokka watches his face—his eyes widen, his mouth drops open, and he immediately raises his hand.

The phoenix starts to swell. Its beak begins to gleam, dark brown giving way to gold. Its feathers brighten from brown to red. Its neck stretches and slims, its tail grows, and—and it’s fucking _massive._

Massive as in big enough for Sokka to climb on top of. Massive as in its beak is half the length of Sokka’s arm. Massive as in it could go toe-to-toe with Zuko in his dragon form, and it’s not entirely obvious which one of them would win.

To Sokka’s surprise, though, the phoenix hisses and shrinks back. As Ozai reaches out to it, it flattens itself against the wall.

It’s trying to stay in the shade. It’s trying to _help_ them.

But it’s huge, and the shade of the wall can only do so much. The sun is inching steadily across the sky, and then Ozai’s reaching out and _dragging_ it into the open—

The phoenix’s wing touches the sun, and it abruptly bursts into flames.

* * *

Sokka braces himself for an attack. On either side of him, Zuko and Azula tense, their hands flickering with fire.

But Ozai doesn’t move. The phoenix keeps burning, curling up on the ground with a dejected-sounding whimper. Ozai throws his head back and laughs, a deep, self-satisfied sound, and bows mockingly in their direction.

“Suo,” he says, his voice as smooth and slick as oil, “come here.”

Sokka glances at Zuko. His mouth is set in a thin line, but he nods.

Sokka inches forwards. Ozai grins at him, all sharp white teeth, and gestures at the tank and cage.

“Your task is simple,” he says. “Identify which of these fish is your sister, and which of these lemurs is your friend. If you are correct, then you may leave unharmed, with your companions returned to human. If you are not…” His smile grows wider. “Well. I gain a worker—forever.” He glances up at the sun. “I’m generous. I will give you one hour.”

Sokka forces himself not to shiver. He looks Ozai in the eye and says, “Challenge accepted.”

* * *

It’s hard to focus when there’s a giant flaming bird in the corner of the courtyard, but Sokka crouches down in front of the tank and cage and peers into them intently.

Well, the most obvious problem is that the animals keep moving. Even if they weren’t identical, he’d have a hard time picking them out. He tries to focus on the koi fish first, but there are so _many_ of them, and they’re so goddamn slippery. He moves on to the lemurs, but they’re just as bad. At least the koi fish don’t chitter loud enough to give Sokka a migraine.

Ozai stalks over to the end of the courtyard and settles down, patting the ground beside him. The phoenix drags itself to sit next to him, but pointedly moves away into the shade as Ozai reaches out for it.

Zuko and Azula move to Sokka’s side of the courtyard, and sit there, whispering with their heads held together. Ozai watches them suspiciously. As Azula turns her head to glare at him, he holds up a hand that crackles with lightning.

It’s a warning, clear as day: _stop talking._

They stop talking.

Sokka takes a deep breath and focuses. He can rule out a few of the fishes and a few of the lemurs; they’re either too big or too small to be Aang and Katara, but that still leaves him with way too many options.

He sits there staring into the cage for what feels like an eternity. He’s pretty sure he’s narrowed them down to only five koi fish and four lemurs, but that’s still a lot. And, to be honest, he has absolutely _no idea_ which of them are his sister and his friend. He doesn’t have some epiphany moment when he’s like, _aha! It’s that one! My newfound spiritual intuition tells me so!  
_ _  
_Sokka does not have a newfound spiritual intuition. He has a slightly-less-newfound spiritual intimidation, where he is terrified of any and all things related to the spirit world. Exceptions include: Toph, Teo and Zuko.

Azula doesn’t count, yet. She _did_ try to kill him.

“Half an hour,” Ozai announces, and Sokka jerks back to reality. _Shit._ His time is half up, and he hasn’t gotten any closer to figuring it out. Yeah, he _thinks_ he’s ruled out half of them, but he could very easily be wrong.

Above his head, the sun moves on. The phoenix keeps burning.

Sokka is so, so screwed.

* * *

“Five minutes,” Ozai calls. Sokka clenches his fists.

Okay. Okay. He has to think about this logically. There’s _no way_ Ozai would make it this easy for him; with this kind of challenge, Sokka could easily win with nothing but blind luck.

If he was Ozai, what would he do? 

Sokka stares at the fish without really seeing them. He’d rig the game. Make sure that, no matter what Sokka picked, he’d lose.

Wait.

An idea starts forming in Sokka’s head. He replays Ozai’s instructions: _identify which of these fish is your sister, and which of these lemurs is your friend._

...He’d never said that Aang and Katara were actually there. He’d never said the words, _one of these fish is your sister, and one of these lemurs is your friend._ So, logically, it’s possible that Aang and Katara...aren’t here at all.

See, here’s the thing: there are twelve lemurs in that cage, and all of them have arrow markings. Sokka knows that there are only three lemurs with arrow markings; Zuko had showed him the zoo. Which means that he has proof that Ozai can change the appearance of the animals, which means it’s not exactly a stretch for him to grab some random sprites and transform them for this challenge.

Sokka’s heart thuds in his chest. It’s only a theory, and a crazy one at that, but it’s all he’s got. He has no idea which fish is Katara or which lemur is Aang, if they’re even here at all.

On the other side of the courtyard, Ozai rises to his feet. “Your time is up.” His eyes glitter like he knows he’s already won. In his hand, Sokka’s contract materialises out of thin air. “What is your answer?”

Sokka takes a deep breath and looks the Phoenix King in the eye.

“My answer,” he says, “is none of them.”

Ozai goes completely, utterly still. Across the courtyard, Zuko and Azula do the same.

“What.”

“You heard me.” Sokka straightens his spine and lifts up his chin. “Aang and Katara aren’t here. You asked me which of the fish was Katara, and which of the lemurs was Aang. My answer is none of them.”

The contract in Ozai’s hand starts to burn. Sokka watches in fascination as cinders spread across the paper, eating it to ash.

“I’m right,” he says, with way, _way_ more confidence than he’s feeling right now. “Aren’t I?”

Ozai crushes the last of the contract in his hand. A smoky character rises out of his fist:卡, ka, the second character of Sokka’s name. Something deep in Sokka’s core shifts, falling into place. He’s gotten his name back.

Ozai doesn’t say Sokka’s won, but his silence is answer enough.

“Leave,” the king grits out. “Take your miserable little friends and _leave.”_

Katara and Aang just— _drop out of thin air,_ like they’ve been hovering there invisibly this entire time. Sokka yelps and scrambles to catch them. They hit the stone like sacks of flour, and Sokka’s heart just about stops beating as he sees that they’re both unconscious.

“Are they—”

“They wake at sunrise,” the king snaps, turning away. “If you’re not out of the city by sundown, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Zuko stands, then, taking a step towards Sokka. He raises a hand, like he’s saying _wait, stay there, I’m coming over_ —

 _“Leave!”_ Ozai roars, throwing out his hand. A scythe of fire slashes outwards, and Sokka shouts out, jumping back. He grabs Aang and Katara by the straps of their packs and starts dragging them out towards the city as fast as he can.

As he runs, he chances a glance over his shoulder. Azula’s standing too, and she and Zuko are shoulder-to-shoulder, staring down their father. Ozai looks unhinged: his chest is heaving, his skin is smoking, and bright white lightning fizzles at his fingertips.

Sokka’s stomach churns as he turns the corner. If he has one regret, it’s that he didn’t say goodbye. Or, for that matter, good luck.

* * *

Lugging two bodies across an entire city is, unsurprisingly, hard. 

He doesn’t even have a cart or a carriage. He’s been trudging for hours with Katara tucked under one arm and Aang tucked under the other, both of them completely unconscious.

Aang’s not that bad. He’s always been feather-light. But Katara is _heavy,_ and he’s carrying their packs as well. By the time Sokka reaches the end of the Middle Ring, he’s exhausted; the sun hangs low in the sky, almost touching the horizon. 

He has to get out of here, and he has to get out of here _now._

He drags himself through the gate and into the Lower Ring. The streets are, as usual, empty, and silent as the grave.

The rumble of wheels on stone stops Sokka dead in his tracks. Fuck. If it’s some kind of spirit, he’s screwed. He’s way too tired to fight, and Aang and Katara are dead weight, and—

A wooden cart trundles around the corner, with Iroh at its head. He beams at Sokka. “Would you like a ride?”

...Sokka might actually be about to cry. 

“Yes, oh my gods,” he gasps out, seizing Aang and Katara and hurling them bodily into the back of the cart. His arms are shaking with exhaustion. Iroh watches him with a shrewd eye, as if knowing exactly how wrung out and tired Sokka feels right now.

He collapses into the passenger seat next to Iroh. There’s no animal pulling the cart—at least, no animal that Sokka can see—but Iroh flicks the reins anyway, and the cart sets off at a gentle trot. They meander through the Lower Ring, all while Aang and Katara sleep in the back and Sokka tries desperately not to put his head in his hands and cry.

He’s so _tired,_ gods, it’s like he’s been stretching himself taut for the last few days and now, suddenly, someone’s cut the rope. He’s sprung back to himself, all elasticity, but he’s not quite sure how to fit the New Sokka, post-spirit-world, back into the life of Old Sokka, who scoffed at ghost stories. The thrumming tension he’s carried lately, the tension of just staying alive, is gone, and it’s left him hollow and strained.

If this is relief, it doesn’t feel like it. 

* * *

As sunset begins to stain the sky, Iroh stops the cart. They’re parked just before the main gate; Sokka stares out past it, at dirt roads and grass fields. He’d almost forgotten that there was a world outside Ba Sing Se. A world where night is just night.

“This is where I leave you,” Iroh says softly. “There is a cave along the left path, not too far from here. If you stay there overnight, you can rest till morning. Your friends will wake at sunrise, I take it?”

Sokka nods mutely. He dismounts from the cart, arms and legs still shaking despite the fact that the cart ride’s given him more than enough time to recover. Iroh helps him maneuver Katara onto his back, with their packs slung around his neck. He picks up Aang in his arms and nods at Iroh.

“Thank you,” he says softly. “For everything.” He can’t help but glance west, where the setting sun is falling.

Iroh looks, too.

“They’ll be fine,” he assures Sokka, though he doesn’t sound too sure. “They are both formidable fighters, and Ozai is at his weakest.”

Sokka swallows and nods. Yeah. They’ll be fine. He’s seen firsthand what Azula can do, what Zuko can do; they’ll make it.

He leaves Ba Sing Se without another word.

* * *

Barely five minutes later, when the sun is half-down and Sokka’s trying to start a campfire in the cave, there comes the unmistakable boom of thunder.

Sokka frowns. Last he checked, the air was warm and dry, with no indications of an incoming storm.

And then he remembers: Zuko and Azula are fighting their father. Azula can throw lightning.

...Thunder is the sound of lightning.

He dumps everything he’s holding and sprints outside the cave. Sure enough, the sky is clear and cloudless. He stares towards the city, praying that he’s wrong.

Another clap of thunder, and this time he sees something small and white and crackling fizz out over the rooftops of the Upper Ring. 

Sokka curses. He’s _free._ He can leave. He looks at Aang and Katara, propped up against the cavern wall...

Another bolt of lightning lights up the sky. 

Sokka grabs a piece of paper and a charcoal stick from Katara’s pack and scrawls down a note.

_Gone to help a friend. STAY PUT. DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING._

He stares down at the paper. To do or not to do? To leave or not to leave?

A distinct roar shakes the very ground beneath his feet, and his stomach drops. _Zuko._

He makes up his mind.

Sokka runs back into the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huh. i struggled a bit w this chapter, so sorry if its a bit messy and all over the place.
> 
> lmao some of my original ideas for zuko's name reveal were v v confusing. at first it was meant to follow the whole 'sokka and zuko have met before', like with chihiro and haku in the movie. their first meeting was supposed to be: as a kid (like maybe 9/10 years old), sokka's out fishing with his dad, and they get separated during a blizzard. baby sokka finds an ice cave to hide in, and he manages to make the tiniest most measly campfire youve ever seen, but it's nowhere near warm enough and he's definitely gonna die of hypothermia. enter zuko, aka the campfire spirit, who sees this small child and immediately says nope! youre not dying! the campfires too small for him to do any real good through it, so he decides: fuck it, im going in. he physically appears in front of baby sokka as a dragon and wraps around him, all nice and toasty, and keeps him warm until morning. baby sokka writes it off as a hallucination.
> 
> ...then i realised how iconic it would be for his name reveal to be bc of azula's goddamn childhood nickname for him so i went with that hjshjs
> 
> (also: good!azula + zuko + sokka? Underrated trio. They would be so powerful together.)


	9. The Vulture's Mimic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d lost sight of the Upper Ring when he got closer, his vision obscured by the walls. Now, flattened against the rooftops, he sees it in full.  
> And oh, shit, what a thing to see.  
> The king’s palace is burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HJHSJSHS I KNOW I KNOW I SAID I WASN'T GOING TO UP THE CHAPTER COUNT AGAIN BUT  
> B U T  
> IM SO SORRY GUYS I HAD TO
> 
> sorry this one took like twice as long as the first 8 chapters lmao school started again and i do be having two of my most important exams on the same day. also, i may or may not have rewritten this three times. and be warned, this chapter has a LOT of swearing (sokka swears when he panics, okay, its a Thing)
> 
> also: there's more art!! beautiful!! amazing!! incredible!!!!
> 
> [Art of Chapter 8 by casadefreewill on tumblr](https://casadefreewill.tumblr.com/post/619033330346803200/continue-to-recommend-azenkis-azenkii-cause)
> 
> [Ghibli Screenshot Redraw by dickpuncherdraws on tumblr](https://dickpuncherdraws.tumblr.com/post/619127758263566336/zukka-x-spirited-away-inspired-by-azenkiis-fic)
> 
> The scene in the second link is one of my favourite scenes in the og movie, and it's definitely going to happen. So yes, the scene does happen, just not at the same time as it does in the movie :P

As it turns out, it’s much, much easier to travel across Ba Sing Se when you do it above the ground.

There are so many buildings crammed together in the Lower Ring that walking across the rooftops is practically effortless. So Sokka doesn’t walk—he runs.

He reaches the Middle Ring so quickly it’s got to be some kind of record. He can’t go through the gate on the ground, for obvious reasons—the sun’s going down, and he can already hear the sound of water. He’ll have to go up.

Wan Shi Tong had said Ba Sing Se was built by human hands. Unless they were all benders, which is unlikely, that means there _has_ to be some kind of ladder, or stairwell, or _something._ Humans don’t build walls that they can’t climb.

Sokka jumps down to the ground and pads over to the gate. Sure enough, there’s a door there, set in the side of the wall and rusty from disuse. Sokka sends up a silent prayer of thanks that it’s only bolted shut and not locked; if it had needed a key to be opened, Sokka would’ve been screwed.

As it is, he manages to wedge out the bolt with some maneuvering from trusty old Boomerang. The door groans open, and he peers inside.

There _is_ a stairwell inside the wall, dark and dank and stale-smelling, but it’s the best chance he’s got. He takes a dead torch from the wall—it’s dry, no surprise there—and runs it along the walls and corners to wrap it up in cobwebs. Once the torch head is completely covered in a mass of white, he fishes out his spark rocks and sets it on fire.

Old beetle-spider webbing isn’t exactly the best kindling, so Sokka hurries up the staircase as fast as he can. The torch gives off less light than he would like; it flickers off the walls and makes shadows that are a bit too long to be natural, but it’s better than nothing at all. The stairs spiral up and up and _up,_ and how tall is the wall, again? How much longer does he have to climb? His legs are beginning to ache.

Finally, the smell of stale air and damp stone gives way to something that Sokka recognises: the smell of fresh water. He comes up around the corner, and _there:_ another bolted door.

The bolt snaps like a toothpick when he tries to take it out, but the door opens, so. That’s fine. Probably.

Sokka leaves his spider-torch in the stairwell and steps out into the open air. As he suspected, he’s on top of the wall, gazing out over the steadily rising water of the Middle Ring. The Upper Ring is beginning to come to life, lanterns lighting up all over the streets; the last vestiges of sunlight are fading, and Sokka’s heart seizes uncomfortably as he realises they have ten minutes, max, before Ozai’s power returns.

The sound of festival music reaches his ears, bright and cheerful, and he turns his head. Bobbing a fair ways to his left is a boat—a spirit boat, painted vivid red and orange and gold, with those strange bodyless passengers that he’d seen on his first night. They’re boarding the ship via a wooden plank branching off the wall, and Sokka realises with a start that this is his ticket across the Middle Ring.

He joins the end of the spirit queue and, miraculously, gets on board without anyone giving him so much as a second look. Either they’re really unobservant, or they just don’t care. Personally, Sokka’s rooting for the latter.

The boarding plank folds up behind him. As in, it literally folds, tucking itself into a neat little square.

...Sokka’s just going to pretend he didn’t see that.

The boat sets out across the water, despite the fact that when Sokka looks in the captain’s office, it’s empty. He decides not to dwell on that, especially since he’s _definitely_ seen weirder by now. Instead, he finds an empty spot of railing and leans over the edge, watching as the very last rays of sun disappear beneath the horizon. 

He glances uneasily to the east, where he knows the moon will rise. By the time he gets to the palace, the battle will probably already be over.

To his surprise, the boat is moving _much_ faster than the monorail or Zuko did. They’re already halfway across. Maybe it’s different at night, or maybe it just depends on where you want to go.

He sighs and lets his forehead drop down to the cool wood of the railing. He doesn’t even know what he’s planning to _do._ If he gets there, and Zuko and Azula have won, then...that’s that. But if he gets there, and _Ozai’s_ won…

He shoves his hand in his pocket. The curved wooden edge of Iroh’s parting gift, the Pai Sho tile, digs into his palm.

火. Huo. Fire. 

Sokka’s never really paid much attention to Gran-Gran’s stories about the benders, not like Katara did, but he _did_ listen. Most of the time. Sometimes. Okay, it was more like a tiny fraction of the time, but he does remember hearing her say something about firebenders. Something about how they’d been the hardest to wipe out, because they refused to back down. 

Zuko and Azula are firebenders. They can hold out, right?

Sokka rubs a hand over his face and gives the sky a quick once-over. Still no moon, but when it appears…

When the moon appears, they’re _fucked._

Sokka’s never been a religious kind of person, but he didn’t use to be spiritual either. And look where that’s gotten him: stranded in the middle of the spirit world. So it’s probably not too far-fetched for the old gods to exist.

So he bows his head, closes his eyes, and prays. He prays to Tui, the moon spirit, to slow her ascent. He prays to Agni, the sun spirit, to keep Zuko and Azula safe. He prays...he prays to everyone, really. He prays to whatever god will listen.

Something glimmers across the water. He doesn’t pay it any attention, but it gets brighter until it’s too hard to ignore, and he looks up to see—

A fish, white and glowing and _giant._ It’s almost as big as the boat. It swims just beneath the surface of the water, turning in lazy circles over and over again.

“Uh,” Sokka says. “Hi?”

The fish turns its head and gives him a look that makes him feel self-conscious. It’s a koi fish, scales gleaming white as ice, save for a perfect black circle between its eyes. Its scarily intelligent eyes.

Well, it’s clearly a spirit. The question is: what kind?

“You can’t talk, can you?” Sokka asks. The fish goes back to swimming in its circle, but there’s a distinctly frustrated air about the way it moves.

“Look,” Sokka says, “I don’t speak fish. I definitely don't speak spirit fish. So if you want to tell me something, you’re gonna have to find some way to say it.”

The fish blows a bubble. 

Sokka sighs and closes his eyes. Dealing with spirits is impossible. Why didn’t he leave? He had Aang and Katara. He could’ve just...walked away. 

No, he thinks. He couldn’t have, because there’s no way he would’ve been able to leave Zuko and Azula to face down their father alone.

The sound of splashing water reaches his ears. Sokka ignores it. 

It comes again, louder this time. His eyes stay resolutely shut.

And then the sound of water is accompanied by _actual water,_ sloshing over Sokka’s feet and soaking his socks and shoes. He yells and springs back, eyes snapping open to find the fish much, _much_ closer to the boat than it was before.

Sokka’s mouth goes dry. Maybe ignoring a spirit wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Especially not a spirit as huge as this one.

The koi glares up at him from the water and slowly, purposefully, blows another bubble. This time, Sokka watches.

The bubble grows bigger and rounder, taking on a distinctly silver sheen as it rises to the surface. Sokka squints at it, trying to figure out why it looks so familiar.

His stomach drops as he realises: it’s turned into a reflection of the moon. He looks up sharply, scanning the sky—

...Nothing. The moon’s still nowhere to be seen. But he looks down and the reflection’s _still there,_ with the fish floating under it and looking at him with a strange glint in its eye.

Something clicks into place, like a faulty metal rod being pushed just right. Sokka staggers back from the railing, staring at the fish spirit with new, terrified eyes.

“Tui,” he whispers, because that’s what it is. _Who_ it is. He’s standing before the moon spirit, the spirit whose name he’s been invoking since he was eight. He’d _ignored_ the moon spirit, holy _shit—_

Tui ducks her head and moves it from side to side. The motion shakes apart the reflection of the moon, fracturing it into dozens of pieces. As Sokka watches, fixed to the spot, the reflection dissolves completely.

Tui gives him a meaningful kind of look. Sokka stares at her. He...has no idea what she’s trying to tell him. Destroy the moon? Drown the moon? How the hell is he supposed to—

_Oh._

The realisation drops into his stomach like a stone. He’d prayed to Tui, just minutes before, to slow down the rise of the moon. He’d prayed, and Tui had listened.

She’s helping him. She’s helping _them._ She’ll delay the moonrise to buy them time before Ozai’s power returns.

Sokka bows to her, as low as the railing will let him. His hands are shaking. 

“Thank you,” he tells her hoarsely, not looking up. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the barest flicker of white fins, accompanied by an almost-silent swish of water.

When he looks up, Tui is gone.

There comes a faint twinge of panic from somewhere in his ribcage. He’s had enough experience with the Spirit World to know that no bargain like that comes without a price. In return for her help, Tui will take something from him, and it’s killing him to not know what.

He almost expects to see a silvery light on the eastern horizon, but the sky remains calmly dark. The only light comes from the lanterns of the Upper Ring. Sokka lets out a breath.

Okay. He’s bought them time. Now all he has to do is reach Zuko and Azula, and they can figure it out from there.

* * *

By the time the boat reaches the Upper Ring, all the lanterns are lit. 

They’re the only lights in the whole city—true to her word (or, uh, bubble), Tui hasn’t yet appeared. The spirits don’t seem to mind her absence; they flood the streets as they always do, flitting between storefronts and houses. The smell of cooking meat fills the air. Sokka determinedly ignores the fact that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast and pushes on, once again avoiding the ground in favour of the roofs.

He’d lost sight of the Upper Ring when he got closer, his vision obscured by the walls. Now, flattened against the rooftops, he sees it in full. 

And oh, _shit,_ what a thing to see.

The king’s palace is burning.

It’s completely, utterly wrecked. The phoenix is nowhere to be seen, but the koi tank and lemur cage are both overturned and almost destroyed. The tank’s cracked down the middle, half-empty and leaking water, with a dozen frantic fish still swimming around inside. Not all the fish are black, now; there’s a single white one, plus a few orange-and-reds. The lemur cage is empty and its bars are bent, parts of it melted in the shape of handprints. 

The palace walls are crumbling ashen messes, deep gouges slashed across them in sets of four. Banners lie tattered in the courtyard, their golden tassels burnt to cinders. Black soot marks litter the ground like tiny starbursts. Smoke hangs heavy in the air.

And everywhere, there is fire.

It’s there in the courtyard, burning in patches on the ground. It’s there on the bridge, turning the river beneath it to steam. It’s there in the air between Azula and her father, as she sends a spinning fireball right towards his face.

Well. Sokka calls it a face, but he’s not entirely sure it can be classified as such.

Ozai’s—he’s—

He’s a fucking _monster,_ is what he is. Literally.

He’s a grotesque amalgamation of bird and spirit. Spiny red feathers sprout from his skin. His hair is greasy and slicked back, looking uncannily like the sleek feathers of a phoenix. His neck is elongated—flaps of skin hang from his throat in folds. He looks emaciated. His legs are scaly and clawed. A half-feather, half-skin stump of a tail extends behind him, and dear gods, his _head—_

If Sokka looks at his head for one more second, he might throw up.

Ozai’s mouth is—it’s curved and bony and beaklike, but only if that beak was still covered in skin. It’s the most horrific thing Sokka’s ever seen. His nose is hooked and longer than it should be. His eyes are beady black. He’s the culmination of all of Sokka’s worst nightmares put together.

And he’s also, apparently, fireproof.

Because Azula’s flames go skidding over his feather-skin- _something_ without leaving so much as a burn. She strikes again, with fire so hot Sokka swears he can feel it all the way from the rooftops, but Ozai simply stands there and lets it wash over him.

The Phoenix King (and gods, that title is now _much_ more literal than Sokka ever wanted it to be) lets out a throaty laugh. It’s the laugh of someone who doesn’t really have the right vocal chords to be laughing, and it makes the hair on the back of Sokka’s neck stand up.

“Try again, dear daughter,” he rasps. His voice is horrible and scratchy and Sokka kind of wishes, very momentarily, that he were deaf. “Even when you’re strong, you’re weak.”

“Go back to your cage, _Father,”_ Azula snarls, and leaps towards him. Holy shit, she’s _fast_ —

She’s fast, but Ozai’s faster.

He sidesteps, his talons dragging against the ground, and plants one foot on the small of Azula’s back. To Sokka’s horror, he snatches Azula by the back of her tunic and pulls.

He pulls, and Azula _chokes._

The collar of her tunic digs into her throat, so hard that Sokka can already see her skin reddening. She gags, hands clawing at her neck, but Ozai holds her fast. Between his foot on her back and his hand at her throat, she’ll run out of breath in seconds.

Sokka doesn’t know how long spirits can survive without air, but judging from the way Azula’s eyes are bugging out, he’d say _not long._

He tenses, preparing to jump off the roof, but something catches his eye. Beneath him, the river bubbles, like it’s boiling.

And then—

 _And then_ —

Something erupts out of the water, something crimson and shining and _huge,_ and it tackles Ozai right in the chest. 

Zuko’s the walking embodiment of a hunter’s nightmare, all gleaming red scales and flashing white claws. His mouth gapes open to reveal rows upon rows of fangs. He lashes Ozai across the face with a tail that’s missing half its scales, and the Phoenix King goes down.

Azula staggers away, gasping, her hands coming up to massage her throat. Behind her, Ozai and Zuko wrestle on the ground, neither of them looking human.

Sokka’s frozen to the spot. Ozai’s making this horrible screeching sound that can only be described as _ten thousand birds being massacred with a rusty machete,_ and Zuko’s roaring with the volume of six dozen oxen, and Sokka’s just—stuck. He’s got one hand on the edge of the roof and one hand on his boomerang and he’s stuck, he’s useless, he doesn’t have any gods-damned idea what to do—

Ozai rakes one clawed hand across the ground with so much force it makes a grating sound loud enough to be heard all over the Upper Ring. Sokka flinches, but he can’t tear his eyes away. Especially not as the ground beneath Zuko rumbles and cracks open, and _spirits begin to appear._

What. The fuck.

Ozai still has magic. 

_Ozai still has magic._

Tui and La, they’re _fucked._

* * *

The spirits that come from the crack in the ground are grey and shapeless, the same kind of spirits that dwell at the bottom of Ozai’s pit. Zuko rears back in what could be terror. And then the spirits—

The spirits lash themselves around him like cables sent directly from hell. Zuko _howls,_ and the sound tears open something in Sokka’s chest.

The cables tighten, forcing Zuko onto his belly. Sokka watches, paralysed, as they dig deeper—deep enough for scales to start popping off Zuko’s skin. Which they do. They drop like flies, leaving bloody pockmarked flesh behind. 

Sokka’s _this close_ to puking.

Zuko snarls, fire brimming in his jaws, but the last spirit left shuts him up—by fucking _muzzling him._ It twists around his snout like a cuff, slamming his mouth shut, his fangs clacking against each other so loudly even Sokka can hear it. And then the spirit starts—it starts dragging him down, forcing his neck to bend in a way that can’t be natural.

Ozai stalks towards him. His vulture’s eyes have taken on a distinctly predatory glint. Sokka needs to—he needs to move, he needs to _help,_ because Azula is still gasping on her knees and Zuko’s trussed up like a pig being sent to slaughter. But he’s frozen, as surely as if Katara’s right there practicing her waterbending on him, and he can do nothing but watch as Ozai crouches before his son.

“I always said you were lucky to be born,” he says, still in that terrible scratchy half-avian voice. He reaches out and places one feathered hand on either side of Zuko’s head. “Perhaps it is time I took that luck back.”

And, with one swift jerk, he snaps Zuko’s neck.

* * *

Or he tries to.

Because boomerangs hurt. Especially when they hit bone. Especially when that bone is, say, the Phoenix King’s wrist.

In other words, Sokka’s about to beat the shit out of Ozai. And he’s starting right here, right now, with a boomerang to the wrist.

Ozai jerks back, slapping his other hand over his wrist, stopping half a heartbeat before murdering his son in cold blood. He snatches the boomerang out of the air, inspects it, then throws it aside. He looks up, scowling, and—

And…Sokka did _not_ think this through.

Because now Ozai knows he’s here. Ozai’s staring at him, his horrible bird face twisted into an equally horrible glare, and he’s—

He’s _launching himself onto the roof._

Sokka screams. It’s not something he’s proud of, but he’s got no time for pride in a fight to the death. So he dodges instead, darting to the side as Ozai lands on the roof tiles with a shuddering thud.

 _“You,”_ he snarls, and—ew. His tongue is long and lolling; he must really be going for the whole vulture-esque look. “You insolent, insignificant, insufferable little _brat!”_

“That’s a lot of in’s,” Sokka notes, and then immediately regrets it—because Ozai _roars,_ his jaw unhinging until it touches his chest. Beneath Sokka’s feet, the roof begins to tremble. He lets out a yell and jumps back as spirit tendrils start worming their way up from the cracks between the clay tiles.

Holy shit. He stumbles backwards, one hand reaching blindly for the hilt of his sword. Tiles start clattering to the courtyard below as the spirits force themselves up, digging their creepy little spirit tentacles into the wooden rafters beneath the clay. 

His heels hit something curved. Sokka glances back over his shoulder and— _shit._

He’s reached the end of the roof. The next rooftop is too far away for him to risk jumping to, and his only other option is to just jump off the roof altogether. Well, he could stand and fight, but he does _not_ like his chances.

“Oh? Planning to jump, are you?” Ozai flicks his wrist. To Sokka’s horror, a fissure opens up in the ground, right where he’d land if he decided to jump. More spirits spew forth, effectively cutting off his only escape route.

He steels himself and turns to face Ozai. The Phoenix King looks like he’s enjoying this; his beak-mouth is set in a too-wide grin, vulture’s tongue tucked behind human teeth. 

Sokka draws his sword and assumes a fighting stance. If he’s going to die, then he’s going to die a warrior.

The first spirit tendril latches onto his shoe—

—and is immediately blasted to cinders by a bright white bolt of lightning.

Sokka only lets himself be terrified for half a second. Once that half-second’s up, he’s moving, stomping down on the closest spirits and squashing them under the heel of his boot.

Down in the courtyard, Azula’s on her feet. She’s got one hand extended, aimed at her father, and another bolt of lightning arcs towards them.

Sokka flinches back as the lightning rips through the centre of the roof. Behind it, it leaves a trail of smouldering ash, molten clay and burnt black strips that smell a lot like roasted spirit. Ozai lets out a noise that could be a snarl, if that snarl had been repeatedly hit with the verbal equivalent of a spiked mace.

It’s not a nice sound.

But behind Azula is Zuko, in his human form, stirring feebly. The burnt remains of the spirits that bound him lie in tatters around the courtyard; Azula must have set him free.

Thank the gods for firebenders, Sokka thinks, a little hysterically. Azula fires off another blast, almost— _almost_ —striking Ozai in the chest.

But the king is fast, and sly, and much, much more powerful than Azula is, even without his phoenix. He dodges the attack and leaps off the roof, landing in the courtyard so heavily the ground cracks beneath his taloned feet.

Sokka follows suit. Ozai doesn’t pay him any mind as he scrambles over to Zuko, picking up his boomerang on the way. The king only has eyes for the biggest threat in the room, and right now that threat is Azula.

“Hey,” Sokka whispers, dropping to his knees beside Zuko. Behind him, there comes the crackle of lightning, followed by the explosion of lightning that’s missed its target. “Zuko, hey, you gotta get up. C’mon, man, you gotta—we gotta _move.”_

Zuko groans. There are bloody red lines running up his arms and legs, wrapping around his torso and throat and—and everywhere, really. It hurts Sokka’s heart to see it, but they do need to move. Azula can only fight Ozai for so long.

And that’s when Sokka remembers: his bargain with Tui. Once the moon rises, Ozai will get his power back. Not that he seems to need it, given the fact that he _still has magic,_ but Sokka’s betting that the loss of his phoenix has resulted in the loss of his firebending. He still has the rest of his freaky magic shit at his disposal, but as long as Sokka’s bargain lasts, at least he can’t throw lightning.

...Sokka has _no idea_ how long his bargain will last.

A chill goes down his spine. For all he knows, Tui could rise at any moment. And when she does…

When she does, they’re fucked. They need to take down Ozai, and they need to do it _now._

 _“Zuko,”_ he says again, more urgently. Azula lets out a cry that could be either rage or pain, and Sokka forces himself not to look. “Zuko, you need to _get up.”_

Zuko cracks open one warm gold eye, and Sokka nearly cries with relief. That gold eye widens as he takes in Sokka, kneeling before him, wide-eyed and terrified out of his mind.

“You came back,” Zuko breathes, his voice so fragile and hopeful that Sokka’s heart just about breaks.

“Of course I did,” Sokka answers, hauling Zuko to his feet. “That’s what you do for the people you love.”

A look of complete and total awe dawns on Zuko’s face, but—

But, behind them, Azula is buying them time by playing with her life. This is no time for feelings, so Sokka squishes them deep, deep down and grips Zuko by the shoulders.

“Can you fight?” he asks, staring Zuko in the eyes. Zuko shakes himself out of whatever trance he’s been in since he woke up. Suddenly, like a lever being pulled, he’s wide awake and as lucid as ever—he squares his shoulders and tightens his jaw.

“To the death,” Zuko answers. His gaze zeroes in on something over Sokka’s shoulder, and his eyes widen. “What is she _doing?”_

Sokka turns, and—

And Zuko’s right. What _is_ she doing?

Azula’s perched on top of the ruined lemur cage, looking more than anything like a feral animal. Her teeth are bared, her nails digging into the melted metal of the bars; if she had hackles, they’d be raised. 

Before her stands Ozai, looking more birdlike than ever. He’s hunched over, his royal robes little more than scorched rags, legs bent backwards like a pig-chicken’s. He’s also dripping wet, because Azula...has apparently dumped the koi tank on him. Which Sokka can deduce with his excellent detective skills, because the tank is lying empty at Ozai’s feet and there are a dozen fish flopping uselessly around him.

“See?” Azula’s screaming. _“See?_ Even _Tui_ despises you!” She throws out a hand at the dark moonless sky. “Riddle me this, Father: _where is she?”_

“Agni’s crown,” Zuko murmurs. “She’s insane.”

“Tui knows her place,” Ozai snarls. As Sokka watches, horrified, his shoulder blades bubble and morph. They twist sideways, shifting beneath his skin in literally the grossest way possible. In their place, something new sprouts—something thin and bony and...feathered. 

“Your dad’s growing wings,” Sokka tells Zuko, because if he doesn’t say something he’s pretty sure he’ll throw up. “I think he’s turning into a bird monster.”

“Oh, I know,” Zuko says, and throws himself into the fight.

* * *

Watching the royal family go head-to-head is one of the most terrifying things Sokka’s ever seen.

There’s _so. Much. Fire._

Zuko’s like a living flame. It bursts forth from his fists and feet and mouth, lighting him up from the inside out. His attacks are controlled, but there’s still a certain kind of wildness to them, like his fire is an animal he’s trained to strike. Azula is the opposite—she’s cold and sharp and precise with her blasts of lightning, aiming for Ozai’s head, or his heart, or his lung. Together, they’re unstoppable.

They’re unstoppable, and yet Ozai...still stops them.

He blocks their attacks by doing nothing more than lifting his (unnatural, hideous, monstrous) wings. Their fire and lightning bounces off of it like it’s the world’s best shield.

Well, even the best shields can fall victim to steel, and Sokka’s got a bone to pick. He draws his sword, waiting until Ozai’s completely focused on his children…

_There._

Sokka lunges, and for the first time Ozai isn’t fast enough. Sokka’s sword cuts into his shoulder with a sickening crunch, snapping through bones that aren’t nearly as solid as they should be.

Hollow bones, Sokka thinks dazedly, as Ozai howls in pain. Birds have hollow bones.

Ozai whirls around, swiping his hand—but it’s not really a hand, ‘cause hands don’t have feathers and they sure as hell don’t have fucking _talons_ —through the air. Something invisible, something _huge_ , slams into Sokka’s side. He goes flying, skidding against the ground hard enough to take the skin off his shoulder. 

“Ow, ow, _ow,”_ he mutters to himself. His elbows and knees are scraped raw, with little bits of gravel stuck in the wounds, and it hurts like hell. Ozai, however, is definitely worse off: there’s a deep, bloody gouge in his shoulder, gushing blood.

Azula and Zuko both take their chance. A roaring funnel of fire and lightning engulfs Ozai from head to foot, and neither sibling lets up until the screaming stops.

When the flames die down, there’s Ozai: on his knees, his clothes charred and full of holes. He’s—he looks like a dead man, all papery skin and limp straw hair, but dead men don’t _look like that._

Because, yeah. Ozai’s not looking too good, what with the—the beak. And the feathers. And the scorched black wings. And the obvious problem of the _spine,_ what the fuck, necks aren’t meant to _bend like that_ —

The Phoenix King opens his beak and lets out an honest-to-gods screech. It’s a carrion bird’s screech, a scavenger’s screech; the signal of the desperate. He raises his head to stare at the sky, which is still resolutely dark.

 _“Tui.”_ His voice is garbled and warped and Sokka never wants to hear it ever again. _“Tui, the traitor.”_

Sokka can’t help it. He laughs. Ozai swings his head around to give him a baleful glare, and like—yeah, that human-bird monstrosity of a face is _definitely_ going to give Sokka a lifetime’s worth of nightmares, but he’s gonna go ahead and laugh in it anyway.

“Something to say, _human?”_ Ozai hisses. He takes a step, one single step, in Sokka’s direction. And that step alone carries so much murderous intent that Zuko and Azula immediately tense up, fire flaring in their palms. 

Sokka can’t bring himself to care. He just wants to rub it in Ozai’s stupid monster face that he’s lost.

So he flips Ozai a hand signal that Gran-Gran would slap him for using. Hopefully, it’s a recognisable sign in the spirit world, too.

“Fuck you!” he says cheerily, which is _also_ something Gran-Gran would slap him for. “The moon’s on our side, dickhead. Sorry about the deposition.”

“Oh, Tui’s on _your_ side, is she?” Ozai’s eyes glint darkly, and Sokka takes a step back. Maybe announcing their advantage wasn’t the best move. “We’ll see about that.”

“Uh,” Sokka says. “That sounded ominous.” He glances at Zuko over Ozai’s shoulder. “Should I be scared?”

Zuko’s gaze is flickering between his father and the ground. Wait, no. It’s flickering between Ozai and the koi fish, which are still lying scattered around him. 

The koi fish, which Ozai now turns to triumphantly. Slowly, Zuko’s expression turns into one of complete and total horror.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he says, lurching forwards. “You _wouldn’t_ —”

Ozai leans down and snatches up the lone white koi. Zuko and Azula both go totally, horribly still.

Sokka glances at them. Both of them have identical looks of fear on their faces. Both of them are staring at the fish held tight in Ozai’s hands.

“I’m missing something,” Sokka says. No one answers him, but no one needs to. 

Because, right at that moment, he sees the black circle on the koi fish’s head. And he recognises it.

It’s Tui.

* * *

“What the _fuck,”_ Sokka says. “The moon was here _the whole time?”_

Maybe he should be prioritising more important things—like the fact that Ozai is holding Tui hostage—but, like. Seriously. The moon was right there, all along?

“We didn’t _know_ it was the moon!” Zuko hisses back, his eyes fixed on the koi in Ozai’s hand. He swears softly, and Sokka can practically hear what he’s thinking: _we should’ve expected this._

And, like, yeah. They should’ve. If Tui is here, in a physical form...then of _course_ Ozai would want to keep her close on the summer solstice. Sokka’s only question is why he hasn’t attacked her up until now; the only explanation he can come up with is that Azula and Zuko have kept him too occupied ever since the sun went down.

Whatever the case, the fact remains that Tui is currently a very mortal-looking fish. And that Ozai is gripping the aforementioned fish so tight it’s a miracle it doesn’t slip right out of his hand.

“My dear Tui,” he croons, in his twisted vulture’s voice, “if you don’t rise, right this instant, I swear on my name I will slaughter La and everything you love.”

Holy shit. He can _do that?_ The fish twitches. Somehow, the twitch looks distinctly apprehensive.

“Tui,” Azula says, her voice low and deadly, “don’t you dare.”

The fish squirms in Ozai’s hand. Every instinct in Sokka’s body is screaming at him to snatch it away, to release it into the river, but he’s frozen to the spot.

 _“Rise,_ you miserable beast,” Ozai snarls, shaking it. Tui’s fins flop limply. Steam begins to rise from where Ozai’s claws dig into her scales.

Sokka stares at her. Why can’t she just—escape? She’s the spirit of the _moon._ She should be more powerful than Ozai. Hell, she’d appeared to him on the ferry, and if she’d been able to do _that_ —

...Unless, of course, that had only been a projection of Tui, and not Tui herself. Which, in retrospect, it probably was.

 _Shit._ Ozai’s got the moon hostage and there’s nothing they can do. They can’t attack him, because who knows what he’ll do? And if Tui decides to rise, then…

How do you stop the moon from rising?

Sokka’s so focused on Tui and Ozai that he almost doesn’t notice. But he does, and it makes his heart go still with dread.

The faintest of silver glows is beginning to grace the horizon.

Tui’s given in. They’ve lost.

* * *

Ozai’s smiling.

Sokka’s never seen a bird smile before, not like that. Not with human teeth. It’s horrifying, and it’s wholly and purely _Ozai._

“You see," he purrs, “spirits change sides _much_ easier than humans.”

Sokka’s paralysed. He’s staring at the glow that will bring their doom, because if Ozai was hard to beat before—

Once the moon rises, they’re all dead. That’s it. They had two options: win or die. And they didn’t win.

Across from him, Azula raises her hands. Her fingers are—they’re _bone-white_ with lightning. He can’t even see her skin. It crackles around her hands like a lethal pair of gloves, condensing at her fingertips, but what can she do? Kill Ozai? Yeah, right.

Ozai’s train of thought seems to be running parallel to Sokka’s. He scoffs (well, he makes a weird bird sound, but Sokka takes it as a scoff). “Lightning, Azula? Please. You can do better than that.”

Azula doesn’t answer. Next to her, Zuko is staring—staring and staring and staring—at the glow of the rising moon. He’s not even looking at her, at the way she extends her hand, two fingers pointed at Ozai’s chest—

But Sokka’s looking.

Sokka’s looking, and he realises what she’s aiming at a moment too late.

Everything slows down. He wrenches his feet from the ground, bypasses Ozai and throws himself at Azula, because she can’t do this, she _can’t_ —

He tackles her around the waist just as she fires the first deadly bolt.

 _“No!”_ Sokka shouts. The word is ripped from his throat, his voice so loud he swears something will tear, but he can’t do anything. He watches, eyes wide, as the lightning arcs towards its target. 

It strikes Tui dead in the centre of her black circle.

There’s a horrible, terrible explosion, bright blue-white and full of heat. Ozai’s thrown off his feet, landing in the river with an almighty splash. Sokka drops to his knees, flinging his arms over his face, and waits for the world to stop shaking.

Somewhere to his left, Zuko’s screaming, roaring at his sister: “Azula, what did you _do?!”_

“What I had to do!” Azula screams back, swiping her hand through the air. Abruptly, the explosion dissipates, blinding blue flames flattening against the ground and fizzling into nothing.

Sokka raises his head. He knows what he’s going to see, but it still doesn’t prepare him for actually seeing it.

The sky is dead and dark and lifeless, with no hints of silver to be seen. Azula’s hands are raised, more lightning already forming at her fingertips, staring at her father as he clambers out from the river. And Zuko…

Zuko’s just like Sokka. He’s staring, slack-jawed, at the moon.

Tui lies limp and unmoving upon the charred black ground. Her scales are untouched, still pure, perfect white, save for a mess of dark red where the black circle should be.

Azula’s done something un-fucking-thinkable. She’s given them an advantage—a gruesome advantage, the worst kind of advantage.

The phoenix is born when the moon rises, after all, and the moon can’t rise if it’s dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ozai: *holds tui hostage*  
> azula, immediately: KILL IT WITH LIGHTNING
> 
> ok but azula would 100% kill tui if she had to. like, come on. it's azula. also, zuko and sokka don't do that much fighting here but they do So Much Fighting in the next chapter (which should be up wayy sooner than this one)


	10. The Host

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels good to be the plan guy again. It feels good to know what he has to do.  
> So, of course, that’s right about when everything starts going to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: this shouldn't take too long!  
> also me: goes awol for over a month 
> 
> Guys, this chapter kicked my ass. I rewrote the whole thing like 10 times. It ended up sitting half-finished in my google docs for like three weeks before inspiration hit at 1am and I finally got it done. I barely even proofread it, so like...if you see a mistake, that's why.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

The river explodes.

The river. _Fucking. Explodes._

There’s no warning, none at all, save for the sudden twist of Ozai’s wrist and the white flash of spirits as they burrow beneath the riverbed. One moment, Ozai’s standing waist-deep in the river, dripping blood and water, and the next—

The river bursts its banks with so much force the bridge snaps in half like a gods-damned toothpick. Sokka doesn’t have time to do more than gulp down the biggest breath he can before the water’s crashing over them, freezing cold and dark as ink.

Look, Sokka’s always been a good swimmer, but—

But _holy shit._

There’s _so much water,_ swaddling him and pushing him down like the world’s most murderous mother. It rushes in his eyes and ears and mouth, choking him before he can even try to breathe. He gets swept off his feet like some kind of damsel in distress, leaving him suspended in open water for one horrible, terrible moment.

And then the current hits.

It comes for him like an old enemy, strong as a fucking battering ram. He gets slammed against the courtyard wall so hard he swears he hears something crack, even through the roaring of the water. It could be the wall, or it could be his ribs, or it could be the sound of his last shred of reason shattering into pieces.

Because there’s no other explanation for what he does next. Sokka’s always prided himself on having a plan, but it’s hard to form a plan when he doesn’t even know which way is up. He’s already lost too much air, and he’s disoriented and lightheaded in a way that can’t be good. 

So he doesn’t waste time thinking. He just squeezes his eyes shut and pulls his sword close to his chest until the blade is flush against him, lined up from chest to knee. He spears it straight down with all his might, praying that he’s close enough to the ground for this to work.

The blade plunges down into open water. For a moment, Sokka thinks well, that’s it, he’s going to die, but then—

The sword stops moving with a grinding jolt, and a shudder runs up the blade. If Sokka had the breath to spare, he would’ve laughed with relief—he’s hit stone. Or, more accurately, he’s hit stone _bricks._

He wedges his sword into the gap between two bricks and pushes it in as far as it’ll go. Once it’s secure, he pulls himself down by the hilt. 

_There_ —his feet touch stone. He crouches down as best he can, trying to ignore the way his lungs are seizing. In one swift movement, he slides his sword out of the ground and jumps.

It’s not the best push-off he’s ever done, but it gets him above the water. He breaks the surface and gasps for breath, his face stinging from the combined cold of the water and night air—

The first thing he sees is Ozai, hovering in midair above the courtyard. The second thing he sees is Ozai’s claws, as the Phoenix King dives down towards him like the gods-damned bird of prey he is.

_Fuck._

Sokka yelps and plunges back down into the water, but he’s not fast enough. Ozai’s claws snag the back of his shirt and snatch him from the water, pulling on Sokka’s collar so hard he chokes.

Ozai throws him down on a nearby rooftop with so much force the tiles crack beneath him. Sokka’s sword goes flying, skidding over the roof and landing on the other side with a metallic clatter.

He doesn’t even have time to catch his breath before a cold bony hand is slamming down around his neck, punching all the breath right out of him. Ozai’s claw-tipped thumb digs into the hollow of his throat, sharp and cold and still dripping river water. He wheezes for air as Ozai lowers his face down to within inches of Sokka’s own.

“I should kill you right now,” the king hisses. His breath reeks of carrion and bile, like he’s eaten nothing but rotting meat for the past few days. “I should end your miserable life and be done with it.”

“Then do it,” Sokka shoots back, which is definitive proof that he’s officially lost all control over his mouth. 

Ozai laughs. It’s a deep, throaty, mutated sound, one that makes Sokka physically cringe away. “Oh, no. I have plans for you.” 

His thumb taps at Sokka’s necklace. “Tell me, _Sokka,_ do they still have that saying in the Water Tribe? What was it, again—children of the Water Tribe are children of the moon?”

Sokka doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t even look at him—not that he wants to, what with the too-much skin and not-enough flesh and bones shifting like winter ice at the start of spring. But Ozai’s right—that _is_ a saying back home. In the creation stories his father told him, the first people of the Water Tribe were children of Tui and La, though he doesn’t know how Ozai could possibly know that. 

“Not talking, hm?” Ozai’s claw skates across the base of Sokka’s throat in a clear and silent threat. “I suppose I’ll just have to find out.”

A chill goes down Sokka’s spine. He _really_ doesn’t want to know why Ozai is smiling the way he is, like he’s won a game that Sokka didn’t even know they were playing. Ozai moves his free hand up to Sokka’s brow and traces one of his claws in a curved line, dead in the centre of Sokka’s forehead.

Wait.

_Wait._

The dots connect.

Ozai needs a second moon, and Sokka’s the closest thing he’s got. 

“No, no, _don’t you dare_ —” Sokka starts bucking and thrashing, kicking out at Ozai’s too-skinny body with all his might. His feet connect with nothing but empty air. _“_ — _don’t you fucking_ _dare_ — _”_

Ozai, predictably, ignores him. His claw digs in harder, and Sokka—Sokka doesn’t know _shit_ about spirit transformations, but he knows instinctively that the second Ozai draws blood it’s over. He’s done. But then there’s also the fact that he’s _pretty fucking useless_ at the moment, seeing as he can’t do anything to stop Ozai from carrying out his plans.

And then—

He gets an idea. It’s a horrible, terrible idea, but it’s an idea. And he’s running out of time, he can’t waste it trying to decide—

So he doesn’t decide.

Sokka reaches up and shoves his fingers into the wound on Ozai’s shoulder.

It’s wet and bloody and gross as hell, but it works. Ozai howls, rearing up as Sokka all but tears his shoulder apart from the inside out. There are bones there, small and hollow and easy to snap, and Sokka crushes them in his fist until Ozai is practically buckling under the pain.

He has to move, and he has to do it now. He rolls under Ozai’s flailing arm, but—

But his wrist gets caught on something, something long and thin and wiry. Sokka tugs frantically, but it doesn’t untangle, so he just—

Fuck it.

He grabs it blindly and _pulls._ There’s a faint snapping sound, like an elastic band being cut, and Sokka scrambles away with whatever-it-is clutched tight in his fist. 

He snatches up his sword and runs. The roof tiles are slippery under his feet, and it’s dark as _fuck_ without the moon, but he manages not to fall off the roof and into the flooded courtyard below.

Ozai isn’t nearly as lucky. When Sokka chances a glance over his shoulder, the Phoenix King is weaving from side to side like a drunkard. His wings spasm uselessly, flapping out and slapping against the roof so hard tiles go skidding into the water. 

Sokka glances too long. His foot catches on a stray tile, and he goes flying, head over heels over head—

Something grabs hold of his ankle and _yanks him down._ Sokka’s heart leaps into his mouth. He opens his mouth to scream as he’s pulled down onto a balcony, but a hand slaps over his mouth before he can do so much as draw in breath. He lashes out at his attacker, clawing and biting and—

“It’s me!” Zuko hisses, lighting up his palm with pale orange fire. Relief hits Sokka so hard he goes limp, slumping back against the balcony rail and sliding down until he hits the floor. “It’s me. It’s me.”

“Holy _shit,”_ Sokka chokes out. He’s shaking so hard he can hear his teeth rattling. They’re sitting on the balcony of some fancy-looking house, one of the many that surround the courtyard. Beneath them, the water has risen high enough that Sokka could reach out and touch it if he wanted to. “Zuko. Zuko, holy shit. Where’s Azula?”

Zuko grimaces. In the light of his fire, he should look ghostly, but instead he just looks alive. “Other side of the courtyard. She’s scouting, but—we have a problem.”

“Uh, _hell yeah we do,”_ Sokka says, reaching up to press two fingers to his forehead. He can still feel the indent of Ozai’s claw, digging into his skin. “Your dad—”

“Azula lost her lightning,” Zuko interrupts, and Sokka’s train of thought derails entirely.

He gapes at Zuko. “She— _what?_ How does that even happen?”

“She killed the moon,” Zuko says grimly. “To generate lightning, she needs both positive and negative energy. Tui is—was—the source of all negative energy. So when she killed Tui…”

Sokka squeezes his eyes shut. Of course. Of fucking course. “She killed her own bending, too.”

“Exactly.” Zuko crouches down beside him and nudges his shoulder. “What were you saying about my—”

Something crunches above them, and they both freeze. The flame in Zuko’s hand goes out, plunging them both into darkness. They listen to the crunching sound—to the _footsteps—_ and Sokka knows it’s coming, but he’s still not fully prepared for Ozai’s voice.

“Where are you, _Sokka?”_ croons the king from the roof above. It’s a terrifying sound, and eerily reminiscent of Azula when she’d been in her ashmaker state of mind. “Are you hiding in the dark?”

Sokka inches away from the balcony railing. Ozai sounds much, much too close for comfort, even as he hears the king start moving further away. Beside him, Zuko slowly breathes his fire back to life, though it stays at the size of a candle flame.

“So,” Zuko whispers, his voice barely audible, “what _were_ you saying about my father?”

Sokka swallows and curls in on himself. The Water Tribe choker around his neck suddenly feels like a vice. “He, uh. I think he wants to turn me into the new moon.”

The fire in Zuko’s hand gutters so violently that Sokka worries it'll go out.

“My father,” Zuko repeats, “wants to _turn you into the moon.”_

“Yep.” Sokka clenches his hands to keep them from shaking. Something small and hard bites into his palm, and he looks down. It’s the thing he’d taken from around Ozai’s neck: a small ceramic jar, white as snow, strung up on a simple cord. “He said it’s because I’m—”

“Water Tribe.” Zuko swears softly. “Of course. You’re a descendant of Tui.”

Sokka bites down on the inside of his cheek. His stomach is churning, and he can’t help but feel like if he’d been born to any other nation then this wouldn’t be happening. “Yeah,” he mutters, gripping Ozai’s jar in his hands. “Yeah. ‘Cause I’m Water Tribe.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Zuko reaches out to touch his hand, like he’s trying to comfort him, but he touches the jar instead. He recoils, and for one brief moment Sokka finds himself desperately missing Zuko’s warmth. 

“What,” Zuko says flatly, “is _that.”_

“I was kind of hoping you could tell me that.” Sokka opens his hand for Zuko to see. He’s not expecting Zuko’s reaction at all—his eyes go wide, his mouth drops open, and he grabs at the jar like it’s the answer to all their problems.

“Agni above,” he whispers reverently, unscrewing the lid and peering inside. Sokka peers too; the jar’s full of what looks like pepper, or coarse black sand. It doesn’t look particularly special, but then again, Sokka doesn’t look particularly moon-spirity, and here they are.

“Um,” he says, because Zuko’s staring at the sand with a transfixed look on his face (and Sokka’s not going to get jealous of a gods-damned _jar,_ okay, he’s _not)._ “Care to tell me what that is, exactly?”

Zuko looks up at him, and his eyes are so bright and so hopeful that all the air goes right out of Sokka’s lungs. 

“This is our ticket to winning,” Zuko breathes, and extinguishes his fire so he can reach up to cradle Sokka’s face in his hands. “Sokka. Sokka, _this is the phoenix’s urn.”_

* * *

“The phoenix’s urn,” Sokka says, and then the words sink in. _“Wait._ This is the phoenix’s—?” 

Zuko nods so hard Sokka could swear he hears his jaw rattle. “These are the ashes,” he says, letting go of Sokka’s cheek to tilt the urn towards him. The black sand—no, the _phoenix ashes—_ all pile up on one side. “Sokka, do you understand what this means? If we manage to destroy the ashes, then it won’t even matter if Ozai gets you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sokka mutters. Zuko lets out a breathless laugh.

“No, no—” He pulls Sokka forward until their foreheads are touching, until the space between them is warm with unspoken things. “No, it matters. _You_ matter. But if we can—can find a way to put these somewhere he can’t get them, then it won’t even matter if the moon comes back, because there won’t be a phoenix for him to revive. If we get rid of the ashes—Sokka, if we get rid of the ashes, _we’re guaranteed to win.”_

Sokka stares down at the urn, if only so he won’t have to look Zuko in the eye. He doesn’t think he _can_ look Zuko in the eye, at least not without wanting to kiss him. “So do we just—?” He jerks a thumb at the courtyard. It’s still flooded with river water, and it would be all too easy to dump the ashes in there without a second thought.

Zuko shakes his head. “No. Ozai probably has some kind of spell that will let him recall the ashes from the water.” He scowls, and the fire in his hand flares a bit brighter. “That bastard lied about losing his magic on the night of the solstice. This whole time, we thought he was powerless, when instead—”

“He can still use magic,” Sokka finishes. “Which means he can use it to get the ashes back from wherever we scatter them to.”

“Precisely.” Zuko turns the urn over in his hands. “We need to either find somewhere that even magic can’t reach, or we need to destroy the ashes.”

“Destroying them sounds good.” Sokka racks his brain for any ash-destroying methods. “What are we going to—”

The blinking of a bright blue light distracts him from his sentence. It distracts Zuko, too, and they both turn around to see where it’s coming from.

It’s a flame, held in the hand of a frantically waving Azula. Like Zuko said, she’s crouching on a balcony on the other side of the courtyard, and—

And she looks _terrified._

She’s gesturing at the water and cutting her hand across her throat. Sokka’s brain is moving too slowly to understand what she’s saying—he’s still stuck on ‘destroy the ashes’—but Zuko goes completely rigid.

He grabs Sokka’s arm, tight as a vice. “We need to go.”

“We—?”

 _“We need to go,”_ Zuko repeats, and the raw urgency in his voice is enough to get Sokka moving. They stumble away from the balcony railing, further into the house. “Ozai’s in the—”

He never gets to finish his sentence. Then again, he doesn’t need to.

Because, right at that moment, Ozai bursts out of the water.

* * *

_“Fuck!”_ Sokka yells, scrambling back from the balcony. Ozai’s scrabbling towards him, splintering the railing to pieces and reaching for him with those horrible claws—

But Zuko’s there, hands burning bright with fire. He shoves those burning hands in Ozai’s face and roars, _“Don’t you fucking touch him!”_

Ozai screeches. Ozai _screeches,_ high and keening, and it takes a second for Sokka to realise that Zuko’s palms are pressed up against Ozai’s neck. He’s burning Ozai alive, and Ozai is thrashing and writhing and—

 _“Go!”_ Zuko bellows. _“Go, run!”_

Sokka doesn’t need to be told twice. He turns and bolts into the house like a gods-damned deer, swinging himself around the corner and skidding down a flooded hallway. Behind him, Ozai is screaming and Zuko is too, and _fuck fuck fuck they’re all so dead—_

Something slams into his side, something warm and sharp and _alive._ Sokka barely registers the fact that it’s Azula before she’s wrapping her hand around his arm, nails digging into his skin in a way that’s all too similar to Ozai’s claws.

“You lost your lightning,” Sokka says dumbly, as she yanks him down the hallway.

“You nearly lost your life,” she snaps back, and shoves him through a side door. _“Move!”_

He moves. Azula slams the door behind them and hauls him through a literal labyrinth of rooms. Sokka lets her; his brain hasn’t caught up yet, and his head is still swimming. The urn in his hand feels like it’s burning a brand into his palm, and he can’t think of anything but _Zuko_ and _ashes_ and _moon._ If Ozai were to catch them now, then he’d be dead for sure.

“Your dad wants to turn me into the moon,” he tells Azula. His tongue feels too big for his mouth. She falters for half a heartbeat, her feet stumbling a little over the floor.

“Well, don’t let him,” she answers, and lets go of Sokka long enough to throw open a sliding door. It reveals another balcony, though this one doesn’t open out onto the courtyard—it opens onto the rest of the Upper Ring. Sokka stares out, at the streets and the houses below.

Azula clambers onto the railing, because she’s just like that, and leaps onto the closest roof, because she’s just _like that._ Sokka tries to follow, but his feet are sluggish and slow. He trips over nothing and grabs onto the railing for support, wincing as the edge of the phoenix’s urn bites into his palm.

Behind them, there comes a roar, and a splash, and then the unmistakable sound of splintering wood. Sokka’s blood ices over—something’s happened, something’s wrong—

“What are you waiting for?” Azula hisses. _“Jump!”_

“I—I can’t.” His mouth is drier than the Si Wong Desert. “I’m not—I can’t—”

 _“Yes you fucking can,”_ Azula snaps, and then: “Even if you can’t, it doesn’t matter. He’ll kill you if you don’t.”

And _fuck,_ she’s right. He can hear the heavy sound of Ozai dragging himself down the hallway, the dry slithering of feathers on wood. 

So Sokka grabs the railing, hauls himself over and jumps. He jumps—

And he misses.

He fucking _misses._

For one terrifying moment, he’s suspended in midair. It’s a moment that burns itself into his mind: Azula on the roof, reaching out towards him, and Sokka in freefall, just shy of her hand.

And then the moment’s over. His fingers brush Azula’s palm, and he plummets like a stone towards the street below. A wordless scream rips itself out of his throat, and Azula dives off the roof like a madman, reaching out to grab his shirt—

Her hand twists in his collar and yanks him up, so hard that Sokka chokes. The urn very nearly slips out of his fingers, and he grabs onto it with both hands. Beneath him, the paved stone street is rushing up _way_ too fast, and Sokka slaps at Azula’s shoulder— _“Move, fucking move!”_ he roars, and Azula—

Azula moves. She punches down with her free hand, and a blast of cobalt fire pushes them up. It doesn’t do shit to keep them from falling, but it buoys them just enough that they hit the ground without dying. 

Sokka lands on his side so hard he feels like his chest has been punched inwards, leaving an indent where his lungs used to be. His leg—well, he heard a crack, and now it’s hurting like hell, so he’s willing to bet that he’s fractured his knee. But Azula’s already getting to her feet, which means that he’s alive and Azula’s alive, so he counts it as a win.

Azula pulls him upright, and he hisses as the movement jolts his bad leg. “Let’s never do that again,” he says, leaning on her for support.

“We wouldn’t have had to, if you’d just _made the fucking jump,”_ she growls. 

“Oh, I’m sorry I’m not a supernatural spirit,” Sokka snaps, as she starts hauling him away from the palace. He’s aching all over, and his knee is killing him. “Next time, I’ll just magically teleport to wherever I need to—”

He’s rudely interrupted by an explosion.

Above them, Ozai bursts through the side of the house they’ve just left, shredding through it like it’s made of paper. Even in the low light, Sokka can tell he looks like shit. His left wing is obviously broken—it hangs uselessly at his side, dragging like a too-long cloak. Twin handprints wrap around his neck, stark red and peeling. Smoke curls off his shoulders, and the acrid smell of burnt hair hangs in the air. Sokka gags, trying his best not to hurl. 

It’s easy to pinpoint the exact moment that Ozai sees them on the ground, because the king lets out a high cackling laugh. He sounds _insane,_ even more than he did before, and Sokka kind of wants to curl up in a ball and hide.

“Trying to run, are we?” Ozai taunts, gripping the broken balcony railing and using it to swing down. Sokka’s starting to see how he and Azula are related. “Let’s see how far you get!”

He lands on the street so heavily that the stone shakes beneath their feet. Azula, as always, reacts faster than Sokka ever could. 

She seizes his arm and all but throws him forward, sending him stumbling away. “Go!” she orders, sounding _exactly_ like Zuko, and Sokka’s about to say that _no, I’m not doing that again, I won’t leave both of you behind—_

But Azula gives him a look. It’s one that he recognises; it’s the look that the men back home would sometimes give each other, a warrior to a warrior. 

_“Go,”_ she says again, her voice low and deadly. “It’s the smartest thing to do.”

And she’s—he hates it, but she’s right. So he lurches forwards and starts hobbling away, and tries to ignore the sound of Azula throwing herself into the fight.

* * *

If someone were to ask how Sokka was doing right about now, then he’d probably answer by screaming in their face.

He doesn’t know what happened to Zuko. He doesn’t know what _will_ happen to Azula. He’s already had both siblings give themselves up just to, what—give him a chance to escape? _Him?_

There are too many variables. There are too many stupid things to keep track of, too many things that could go wrong—and somehow, _Sokka’s_ the one who got stuck with the moon spirit heritage and the urn in his hand. _Sokka’s_ the one with the power to make or break them, and he’s also the one least suited to it.

Oh, and he’s lost.

Yep. He’s fucking _lost._ It’s not like he’s had the time to get acquainted with the Upper Ring, and he has no idea where he is. The only thing he recognises is the palace, which juts up above the rooftops like a spire. And he can’t go towards it, seeing as the whole point of that little jump-and-run expedition was so that he could get away.

Gods, Sokka doesn’t even know where he’s meant to be going. He can’t exactly cross the Middle Ring, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to leave Zuko and Azula behind again. He’ll help them take down Ozai or die trying, and unfortunately, it’s starting to look like the _die trying_ option is a lot more likely.

His hand is starting to cramp from holding onto the urn, so Sokka takes what’s left of the cord it’s hanging on and ties it around his wrist. It swings there like the world’s ugliest bracelet, but it’s better than having one hand constantly occupied. This way, he can at least hold his sword in both hands—not like it’ll do him any good if he ends up facing Ozai, but it makes him feel better.

He turns a corner and stops dead.

He’s standing in a plaza. A plaza that is _way too familiar,_ because there’s a massive building in front of him that he kind of never wanted to see ever again.

It’s the Town Hall. Otherwise known as the place that got them into this situation in the first place, when Aang and Katara found a bunch of bending scrolls.

Sokka really, really, _really_ doesn’t want to go in there again, but he’s eighty-percent sure that if he keeps on walking, he’ll pass out from exhaustion. At least he knows that the Town Hall is relatively safe—provided, of course, that he doesn’t steal anything.

So, despite the fact that literally every single instinct in his body is screaming at him not to do it, he drags himself up the steps and tumbles into the Hall. He barricades the doors with a nearby desk and slumps down against the far wall, taking a second to catch his breath.

Okay. Okay. First things first: he has to set his knee. It’s swollen enough that he knows it’s definitely fractured. 

Sokka’s no medical expert, but he at least knows how to bandage a knee—so that’s what he does. He props himself up against the wall and unwinds his arm wrappings, wincing a little as they rub against the burns and scratches left over from when he was holding Zuko down in the library. Gods, that feels like forever ago.

He uses one wrapping as padding, looping it loosely around his bent knee. The other he uses as bandaging, winding it tight around the other, and finishes off by wrapping his sarashi around it for good measure. It’s not the best, especially considering his arm wrappings are nowhere near proper bandaging, but he’ll take it. 

The urn around his wrist is knocking against his hand and generally getting in the way, so he unties the cord and stuffs it in his pocket instead. His hand hits something smooth and hard, and it takes a second for him to realise that it’s Iroh’s Pai Sho tile.

Sokka pulls it out, inspecting it in the light of the lanterns. His fingers leave smudges of blood on the wood—and is it just his imagination, or is it getting warmer under his touch?

Oh, well. It doesn’t really matter. He drops the tile back in his pocket and stands, careful to keep most of his weight off his bad leg.

What does he _do?_ He can’t go back and find Zuko or Azula, because he’ll _definitely_ get lost on the way. He knows that the Town Hall is near the Middle Ring, but seeing as the Middle Ring is currently full of water, that doesn’t do shit to help him. He can’t do anything but sit here and wait, and he hates it.

Well, no. He can try and figure out a way to destroy the phoenix’s ashes. He puts a hand over his pocket, feeling the outline of both the urn and the Pai Sho tile.

How does he get rid of ashes? They don’t dissolve in water. They don’t burn. He could try scattering them on the wind, but there’s no guarantee that that would work. Ozai could always just do his weird magic shit and get them back.

Okay. So he can’t destroy the ashes. That leaves the other option: putting the ashes somewhere that even Ozai’s magic can’t reach.

Sokka stares at the wall without really seeing it. Beneath his hand, the Pai Sho tile presses into his palm. Iroh’s Pai Sho tile.

_Iroh._

Iroh is a powerful spirit, maybe even more powerful than Ozai, but he hadn’t been able to come with them because he couldn’t trespass on Ozai’s domain. Azula and Zuko had mentioned that territory was important to spirits; if it’s _that_ important, then they could use it to their advantage.

An idea is forming in his head, slow and vague and foggy. Maybe— _maybe—_ if they somehow put the ashes into another spirit’s domain...maybe then Ozai wouldn’t be able to get them. Not even with his magic.

But how do they do that? All of Ba Sing Se is technically Ozai’s territory, or at least the Upper Ring. There’s no way Sokka will be able to get the urn into another spirit’s domain—Ozai would cut him down before he could so much as get across the Middle Ring.

Still, it’s a start. He’ll have to run it by Zuko and Azula, assuming they’re still alive, because he’s going off a hell of a lot of estimation right now—but _it’s a start._ Sokka grins to himself, right there in the Town Hall; it feels good to be the plan guy again. It feels good to know what he has to do.

So, of course, that’s right about when everything starts going to shit.

* * *

When Ozai bursts through the doors, Sokka doesn't even waste time screaming.

He goes right for his sword, which is propped up against the wall. He lunges for it, ignoring the pain that shoots up his leg, but—

Ozai slams both hands down against the floor, and Sokka stumbles. Beneath his feet, the floorboards are splintering apart—and with good reason. In the cracks between them, translucent grey spirit tendrils are wriggling up and winding around Sokka’s ankles, because of fucking course they are.

Sokka swears and tries to kick them off, but it’s hard to do that when he only has one good leg. In the doorway, Ozai straightens and lifts his hands from the floor, but the tendrils don’t let up. They curl around Sokka’s calves, and he bites down on a scream as one wraps around his fractured knee and squeezes tight.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ozai make a flicking gesture with his wrist. The tendrils tighten—

And they pull. They fucking _pull,_ yanking Sokka’s legs right out from under him. For a second, he pinwheels his arms, but it’s no use—he falls flat on his face, only just avoiding breaking his nose by turning his head at the last second. That has the unfortunate side effect of sacrificing his jaw and cheek to the floor instead, which hurts like _hell._

As Sokka pushes himself upright, he spits out a mouthful of his own hair. His warrior’s wolf-tail has come undone—which feels fitting, somehow, as he glares up at Ozai from the floor. A wolf-tail represents courage, and it’s not exactly courageous for him to be on the ground with his legs bound by spirit ties.

“If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with,” he spits. Ozai smirks and steps over the threshold, not bothering to close the doors behind him.

“I’m not going to _kill_ you,” Ozai says, like it’s obvious. He sweeps his wings—well, wing singular, because his left one is still hanging at an unnatural angle—over the floor. More spirits rise from the floorboards, lashing around Sokka’s wrists and dragging him up until he’s spread-eagled against the wall.

Ugh. He’s strung up like a gods-damned pig deer being led to slaughter. The spirit cables dig into his wrists, chafing at the burns there, and Sokka bites down on a hiss.

Ozai approaches like he has all the time in the world. Sokka eyes him—despite having just come from a fight with Azula, he looks no worse for wear. That does _not_ imply good things about what happened to Azula, and Sokka feels a chill go down his spine as Ozai comes closer.

It’s when he passes Sokka’s sword, lying discarded on the floor, that it happens: in Sokka’s pocket, the Pai Sho tile grows warmer. Well, it could be the tile or the urn, but he’s pretty sure it’s the tile.

With every step Ozai takes towards him, the tile gets hotter by another few degrees. By the time the Phoenix King comes to a stop in front of him, Sokka’s pretty sure his pocket’s a few seconds away from lighting on fire.

“I really thought you’d put up a better fight than _this,”_ Ozai tells him disdainfully. Sokka weighs the pros and cons of spitting in his face.

He doesn’t get to make a decision, though, because Ozai reaches out. He reaches out, _towards Sokka._

Sokka cranes his head backwards and away from Ozai’s taloned hand, but his range of movement is limited to a few inches thanks to Ozai’s spirit ties. He squeezes his eyes shut as Ozai places his hand on his head, so casually it’s insulting, and—

And, in his pocket, the Pai Sho tile _burns._ Sokka sucks in a breath and bites down on his cheek to muffle a scream, clenching his fists as the tile grows hotter.

Ozai hisses and recoils, clutching his hand to his chest. The heat immediately lessens, cooling down to a more manageable warmth. 

Ozai glares down at him. _“What did you do?”_

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Sokka tells him, trying to ignore the way his heart is racing in his chest. So the tile’s magical—okay. Okay. He can work with that. He’s hyper-aware of the way it buzzes in his pocket, still giving off enough heat to start a small fire. 

Ozai’s lip curls. He makes a pulling motion with his hand, and the tile—

The tile fucking _bursts_ out of Sokka’s pocket. Literally—it tears through the fabric, leaving a sizable hole behind. Sokka curses under his breath and subtly shifts his leg sideways, praying that the urn won’t fall out.

But he’s got bigger problems. Namely, the fact that the tile is now hovering in the air between him and Ozai, slowly turning on its side like a pendulum. Sokka stares at it—it looks normal enough. It’s just a piece of shaped wood with a character stamped on it in stark black ink. But judging from the way Ozai is looking at it, the tile is much, much more than that.

“A protection spell,” Ozai murmurs. “Iroh’s spell. How _quaint_ of him.”

He curls his fingers, and the tile shoots into his palm. Sokka’s breath catches in his throat, but he can’t do anything but watch. The tile lays quivering in Ozai’s palm, like Iroh’s magic is still trying to protect him.

Ozai clenches his hand into a fist, covering the tile in its entirety. When he opens it again, the tile is completely blank. The character that was on it before, the character for fire—火—is nowhere to be seen. 

And, like. Sokka knows the tile is an inanimate object. He _knows._ It’s not sentient. It’s not alive. Up until a few minutes ago, he didn’t even know it was magical.

But now, staring at that blank tile in Ozai’s palm, he can’t help but feel like it’s suddenly much, much more dangerous than it was before. Iroh’s spell is gone, and the tile is ready to be imbued with new magic. It’s obviously a charm, or a tool of some kind, and the fact that it’s now in Ozai’s hands is making him uneasy.

Ozai smiles. It’s a twisted, demented thing, and Sokka drops his gaze. He stares at the tile instead, now being held between Ozai’s fingers like a coin.

“You know, I should be thanking him,” Ozai says conversationally, like he isn’t holding Sokka down with spirit cables. “It’s so kind of my brother to provide me with a channel.”

Sokka swallows. So he was right—the tile is a channel, whatever that is, and Ozai’s going to use it. “A channel. Right.”

Ozai hums, but it comes out garbled and throaty. Which is really no surprise, considering that his vocal chords are probably a super messed-up combo of human and bird. He reaches out, and Sokka resists a shudder as the Phoenix King places the Pai Sho tile on his brow, right above his eyes.

“Think of it as a conductor,” Ozai says silkily. He rests one claw-tipped finger dead in the centre of the tile, putting just enough pressure that Sokka can feel the wooden edges digging into his forehead. “Something through which I can transmit my magic.”

He drops his eyes to meet Sokka’s gaze, and Sokka can’t help but flinch back. Those eyes are beady and black with just a hint of muddy gold, and they’re shaped like a vulture’s. He can’t help but think of how vultures are omens for danger, and that he’s just landed himself in the worst danger possible.

“Or, better yet,” Ozai says, “don’t think of it at all.”

He presses down on the tile, and Sokka screams his heart out.

* * *

Ow. Ow. Fucking _ow._

That’s pretty much all Sokka can think of at the moment. Searing pain shoots down from his head to the tips of his toes, and it’s taking little detours on the way to make sure that no part of him misses out. The tile on his forehead is hotter than a gods-damned poker, branding him with a mark he doesn’t want. It feels like he’s been hit by fucking lightning, like something’s taking out his bones and rearranging them one by one, and he hates it he hates it he _hates it_ —

He screams, again, so loudly that he swears he’s just scraped his throat raw. It’s like every nerve ending in his body is being redirected. It _hurts,_ gods, it _hurts so bad,_ and he can hear Ozai laughing somewhere very far away. 

“Oh, don’t _fight_ it,” the Phoenix King says, sounding like a mildly annoyed teacher. “That only makes it worse.”

Sokka chokes. The tile grows hotter, if that’s even possible, and something deep in his chest twists and pulls and—and _fuck,_ is this what it feels like to be turned inside out? Because he definitely feels like he’s being turned inside out. Ozai’s magic manifests as a parasitic, invading _thing,_ and he can feel it poking and prodding at parts of him that he didn’t even know existed, waking up things that _really_ should’ve stayed dormant.

Sokka’s always thought of spirits as distant and untouchable, but now he knows for a fact that that isn’t true. Because when something shifts, from left to right and right to _wrong,_ it’s very much a physical change.

For a second, his vision whites out. It’s too much—his blood’s running the wrong way and his bones are aligning with joints that don’t fit and his muscles are just kind of _there._ It’s too much, and he _knows_ he’s going to die, because there’s no way a human could handle this.

There’s no way a human could handle this, but...he handles it.

He _handles_ it.

The tile goes so cold so quickly it sends a shock through his whole system. He’s fallen into ice water before—living at the South Pole makes it kind of inevitable—but that’s nothing compared to this. He swears he can feel frost forming in the marrow of his bones, and that if he opened his mouth he’d breathe cold air.

And, just like that, everything snaps back into place. His body pulls itself back together so quickly he gets whiplash, and he lets out a wheezing gasp. His entire body goes limp, sagging from his restraints, and Ozai scoffs somewhere above his head.

“Pathetic,” the king says distastefully, “but it’ll do.”

Sokka grits his teeth. He feels like utter shit and he’s shaking all over, but he will _not_ stand for this kind of insult. “What’s wrong, _Ozai?”_ he snipes, craning his head up to glare at the king. “Can’t deal with being too close to a human?”

Ozai throws back his head—which is _gross,_ because his neck is way too long and his head flops back all the way to his shoulder blades—and laughs, long and loud. Sokka clenches his hands into fists in an attempt to keep them from trembling. 

“Don’t tell me you still think you’re _human,”_ Ozai says, sounding way too amused. Sokka’s gut twists in a way that makes him grateful he’s barely eaten anything all day.

“Of course I do,” he snaps. He’s not feeling particularly spirit-y, though he _is_ feeling particularly shitty. Still, if he’d somehow turned spirit, then he...he’d be able to feel it, right? 

Right?

Ozai doesn’t say anything to assuage Sokka’s fears. He simply steps aside, giving Sokka a clear view out of the Town Hall doors. Outside, the Upper Ring is dark and uncharacteristically silent, lit only by the lanterns.

Wait.

It’s not lit only by the lanterns. There, above the rooftops—the faintest silver glow.

Sokka’s stomach drops. He knows exactly what that glow is: moonlight. _Moonlight,_ which means—which means—

“Welcome to my city, Sokka Watertribe.” Ozai’s voice is smooth as steel. “I’m sure the spirits will like you. After all, you _are_ Tui’s newest host.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so messy and so confusing and i shoved so much random info in it but it EXISTS and that's what matters!!!! 
> 
> Would you believe me if I told you that absolutely nothing that happens in this chapter was planned? The idea of Sokka becoming the moon spirit('s host) didn't even cross my mind until people started commenting on the last chapter, and I was like 'hm. this. i can use this.'
> 
> and yes. i did. up the chapter count again. BUT this time i actually know where the story's going so uh?? it should ACTUALLY be out sooner? depending on how long the next chapter turns out to be, this story's either gonna finish on 11 or 12 chapters.
> 
> thank you for reading!! come scream at me on tumblr @azenkii.


	11. The Third Option

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a horrible feeling, holding a dying thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER 11 IS FINALLY HERE  
> i'm so sorry i went awol again, so i hope this double (and final!) update makes things better 🥺  
> (also! more art! more amazing, incredible art!!!)
> 
> [Art of Chapter 6 by thisisjustmud on Tumblr](https://thisisjustmud.tumblr.com/post/625788172677382144/yes-its-mostly-tracing-yes-the-sparrow-anatomy-is)
> 
> [(Another) Ghibli Screenshot Redraw by dickpuncherdraws on Tumblr](https://dickpuncherdraws.tumblr.com/post/627660642263924736/zukka-x-spirited-away-again-been-thinking-about)

When Kou wakes up, the first thing he hears is: “Are you dead?”

 _Well, that’s a bit rude,_ Kou thinks groggily. He doesn’t deign to give an answer to whoever’s asking, because he feels like _shit_ right now. Every single part of him is hurting like he’s just been trampled underfoot by a herd of komodo rhinos. 

Ugh. His mouth tastes like something died in it. He’s propped up against something, his chin drooping onto his chest and leaving a wicked crick in his neck. His shoulders are all bunched up and aching, for some reason, and—

Oh. He’s tied up. His hands are bound somewhere behind him. _That’s_ why his shoulders are burning.

 _Huh,_ Kou thinks, with a certain kind of calm that comes with having only just returned to the waking world. _Okay. I’ll deal with that later._

An all-too-familiar feeling prickles its way up his arms and down again, leaving his hair standing on end. Kou wrinkles his nose. Who let Toph into his room? She’s the only one who’s got the guts to shock him like this. She likes to shuffle around on the ornamental hallway rugs until her fingers are charged with static, and then she hunts him down purely so she can stick her hands down his collar and cackle when he jumps. 

Except this time, the static is accompanied by a voice.

“I asked if you were dead, Zuzu. It’s a simple yes or no.”

That’s... _definitely_ not Toph.

Kou’s brain blanks out for a second. He knows that voice. And, more importantly, he knows that nickname.

Azula’s the only one who’s ever called him Zuzu. _Zuzu,_ after the first half of his name, which is—

The last twenty-four hours punch into Zuko’s head like a gods-damned spear. Sokka, Ozai, and fucking _Azula_ —

Zuko lurches forwards, gasping for air like a fish out of water. His eyes snap open, and he barely has the time to register the scene in front of him before he’s slamming them shut again. _Fuck,_ his head is killing him.

 _“Finally,”_ Azula drawls. Her voice somehow sounds like she’s both right next to him and incredibly far away. “I was beginning to think you’d actually died.”

Zuko groans in response. At this point, he’s starting to hope he’ll actually die. Anything’s better than the dull pain that’s currently throbbing throughout his entire body. 

Another burst of electricity, enough to startle but not properly shock him, goes racing up Zuko’s spine. It feels like he’s getting pricked by a thousand tiny needles. 

“If you don’t say something soon,” Azula says, “I’m going to have to assume the bastard cut out your tongue.”

“What the _fuck,”_ Zuko rasps. He still can’t open his eyes without feeling like someone’s bashing his head in with a rock, but that last static shock had given him a revelation that he really didn’t want to have. “Did—did you just _electrocute me?!”_

“Don’t be dramatic,” Azula scoffs. Zuko cracks open his good eye to catch a blurry glimpse of her, sitting across the courtyard from him with her hands behind her back. “I didn’t use enough to _electrocute_ you. I just shocked you a little.”

“You shocked me,” Zuko repeats slowly. “With _lightning.”_

“You looked like a cadaver, Zuzu. Forgive me for wanting to wake you up.”

Zuko makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “And you couldn’t have done that without using fucking _lightning?”_

“My hands are tied, Zuzu,” Azula points out dryly. “As in, they’re _literally_ tied behind my back. What did you want me to do, yell at your corpse until you moved?”

Zuko huffs out a breath and lets his head fall back to his chest. Now that he’s fully conscious, the pain’s increased tenfold. 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of situation he’s landed himself in. Judging from the split-second glance he’d gotten before he closed his eyes, he and Azula are alone in the courtyard. Which means that the thing Zuko’s propped up against is probably one of the pillars lining the courtyard’s edges, which in turn means that he’s tied to the aforementioned pillar. His hands have been pulled around the pillar and tied at the wrists, and his shoulder blades are digging into the centre of his back in a way that makes it feel like both his arms are about to fall off. And his legs—

His legs...are submerged. Submerged, as in _underwater._

“What the fuck,” he repeats, finally managing to open his eyes fully so he can stare down at himself. The water comes up to just beneath his ribcage, cool and strangely still. He looks around at the rest of the courtyard wildly—sure enough, there’s a layer of water over the entire place. “Have we been sitting in _water_ this whole time?”

“Congratulations,” Azula says. Zuko looks up at her. “It only took you about three minutes to notice. How did you think I was shocking you?”

Zuko opens his mouth, then closes it again. Gods, he’s an idiot. Water conducts lightning, and the whole courtyard’s covered in it thanks to Ozai’s flood. Of course Azula would use it to her advantage.

“Wait a second,” Zuko says slowly. His mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton. “You shocked me. With lightning.”

Azula tilts her head. “Obviously.”

Zuko gapes at her. “What do you _mean,_ obviously?” he yells. “When the _hell_ did you get your lightning back?!”

Azula’s face darkens. She purses her lips and looks away. 

“Tui’s back,” she mutters, and Zuko’s heart fucking stops.

“No,” he says automatically. He jerks his head up to stare at the sky, but—

But that just confirms what Azula’s said. The torches around the courtyard are all dripping wet and dead. The buildings, however, don’t really need the torches anyway—not with the silver glow of moonlight that’s gilding their roofs.

 _“No,”_ Zuko repeats. He clenches his hands so hard he swears he feels his nails draw blood. “She—if she’s back—”

“I know,” Azula says, so calmly that Zuko wants to throttle her. Doesn’t she see how bad this is? If the moon is rising, then that means Ozai’s succeeded. It means that Sokka must now be at Ozai’s mercy—and Zuko knows, better than most, just how little mercy Ozai has.

Agni save them, they’re _fucked._ Azula and Zuko are both tied up. Sokka’s obviously alive, but he’s under Ozai’s power. Ozai controls all the pieces on the gameboard, and soon enough, he’ll pull off his winning move.

“Fuck,” Zuko says, very emphatically. He rests his head on the pillar behind him and squeezes his eyes shut. _“Fuck.”_

“Agreed,” Azula says. “Now, unless you’d like me to shock you again, stop freaking out and help me make a plan.”

* * *

“You know,” Sokka says, “I really think it’d be easier if you just let me walk.”

Ozai doesn’t give him an answer. To be fair, Sokka wasn’t really expecting him to, but. Still.

“I’m serious,” he says. With the way he’s slung over Ozai’s shoulder, he’s getting an eyeful of the king’s broken wing with every step. “You’re technically just making things harder for yourself by doing this.” 

_“Technically,”_ Ozai says coolly, “Tui could survive even if her host was missing a tongue.”

“Okay, fine, I get it,” Sokka grumbles. “I’ll shut up.”

Ozai doesn’t respond. If Sokka’s hands weren’t tied behind his back, he’d flip the king off with zero regard for the consequences.

Maybe he should be panicking more. He feels like he should be panicking more. Hell, he’s pretty sure _Ozai_ thinks he should be panicking more.

And, like. Yeah. Getting turned into the moon’s host is a pretty panic-worthy event. But Sokka’s always been like this: when he reaches a certain amount of stress, he just...glosses over it. He pushes it way, way down and starts cracking jokes, because if he doesn’t then he’ll either die or have the mother of all breakdowns. 

So here he is, joking around with the Phoenix King and admiring his newly-acquired bright white hair. Because that’s a thing now. His hair, which is still hanging loose and is currently getting into his mouth, is now whiter than the fur of a newborn tiger seal.

It looks badass. Sokka likes it. 

Still, cool white hair and a phony upbeat attitude can only take him so far. It’s not exactly like Sokka can ignore the fact that he’s been trussed up and tossed over Ozai’s shoulder like an animal, or that the urn is still in his pocket, or that they’d passed the smoking ruined remains of Ozai and Azula’s fight not too long ago. Or, y’know, that he’s the Moon Spirit’s _fucking_ host.

(He still doesn’t know what that means. Is he a spirit now? Is he still human? Is he some weird human-spirit hybrid that shouldn’t be alive? Who fucking knows? Certainly not Sokka.)

Moon Spirit aside, though, there’s something else that’s taking up considerable space in Sokka’s brain. And it’s something that Sokka _really_ didn’t expect.

Ozai hasn’t touched him.

Sure, he’s gone ahead and tied Sokka up with his stupid spirit cables, and he’s probably going to sacrifice Sokka on an altar or something to appease the phoenix spirits or whoever else is in charge of reincarnation, but he hasn’t actually hurt Sokka. He hasn’t drawn blood. And he hasn’t even so much as _mentioned_ the urn. It’s a complete one-eighty from before, when Ozai had seemed perfectly content to kill Sokka and leave his body for the birds.

It’s making Sokka suspicious. Sue him, but he thinks that if someone wants to kill him, then they should at least commit to it. None of this half-assed ‘will they or won’t they’ suspense.

Sokka’s so busy thinking about whether or not Ozai will kill him that he doesn’t even notice they’ve reached their destination until Ozai stops dead. Sokka twists around, trying to get a better look at what’s happened.

“What?” he asks, and glances around them. They’re just outside the courtyard. “What is it?”

Ozai promptly dumps him on the ground. Sokka lands on his side with an _oomph,_ wheezing a little as the force takes all the wind out of him. The urn digs into his thigh. Ozai pays him no mind, which Sokka takes as an opportunity to crane his head around and finally get a good look at the courtyard.

The water’s mostly receded back into the river, though the yard is still flooded. On the left side of the courtyard, Azula is bound to a supporting pillar by what Sokka assumes is spirit cables. On the right side…

Well.

The balcony on that side of the courtyard is buckling dangerously, mostly because one of the main pillars has been blown out completely. The pillar’s bent in two, the middle of it crunched together in a mess of splintering wood. Scratches are gouged across the pillars base in sets of four, a calling card that Sokka now knows belongs to Zuko’s dragon form.

Sokka doesn’t know what happened here, but he’s pretty sure he can infer. Based off what happened to Azula, it’s probably a safe bet to assume that Zuko got tied up, too.

Except he’s obviously not tied up now. Because, y’know, even magic has to bend to basic logic sometimes, and basic logic says that ropes made to fit a sixteen-year-old boy will snap if they end up meeting a sixteen-year-old dragon instead.

“You _brats,”_ Ozai snarls, striding forwards. _“What did you do?”_

Azula smirks at him. Her hair’s singed and hanging loose around her face, and there’s a nasty bruise blossoming on her cheekbone, but apart from that she looks relatively unharmed.

“Hello, Father,” she says calmly. “So nice to see you again.”

“Where is he?” Ozai snaps. He’s standing just outside the courtyard, by the edge of the water. Azula’s all loose muscles and easy smiles as she leans back against her pillar, but Sokka sees how her eyes are fixed on Ozai’s feet.

She’s waiting for him to step into the water, Sokka realises. Why on earth would she be waiting for him to step into the water?

“I assume you’re talking about dear old Zuko,” Azula muses. “Well, he’s not here, that’s for sure.”

Ozai makes a harsh grating sound in his throat that makes Sokka flinch back so violently he nearly falls back into the river. The movement makes Azula’s gaze jump to him—and, by extension, his bright white hair.

Azula’s mouth drops open, just a bit. Ozai turns his head and follows her gaze, smirking a little with that horrible beak-mouth of his when he sees what she’s looking at.

“Ah, yes,” he says, almost pleasantly. Sokka leans back as far as he can without falling into the river and accidentally drowning, but Ozai reaches down and drags him forward anyway. Sokka hisses out a curse as Ozai tosses him into the courtyard, landing in the water with an unceremonious splash.

“Let me introduce you, dear daughter, to the newest host of Tui,” Ozai says smoothly, stepping into the water behind Sokka. Azula blanches. Sokka doesn’t know if that’s because of Ozai’s words or Ozai’s actions; whatever attack Azula had in mind, she clearly can’t carry it out while Sokka’s in the water too. “He’ll be joining us for the foreseeable future; he’s quite an important guest.”

He half-turns, then, standing so that he can see both Sokka and Azula. He almost looks like a referee, about to give the starting signal for a fight. He raises one hand in Azula’s direction, and—

And Azula _chokes._ A spirit cable from gods-know-where lashes out around her throat, pulling back until her head is tilted back against the pillar and her neck is bared. Sokka lurches forwards, but with his hands bound behind him, all he can do is wriggle uselessly in the water like some kind of worm. Ozai watches with thinly-veiled amusement.

“So,” the king says casually, “I have a proposal.”

Sokka debates the advantages and disadvantages of spitting in Ozai’s face. (Advantages: it’ll be satisfying. Disadvantages: it’ll probably get him killed.)

Ozai doesn’t seem to care about Sokka’s opinion, because he barrels on without so much as waiting for an answer. “As you can see, my daughter is in a rather vulnerable position.” He wriggles his fingers, and the cable tightens even further. Azula lets out a tiny gasping sound. “So I have a deal for you, Sokka Watertribe. It would be wise to consider it.”

With the way he’s lying on his side, Sokka can feel the urn pressed against his thigh. At Ozai’s words—or maybe at the steadily growing glow of moonlight on the horizon—it grows exponentially warmer. It reminds Sokka of Iroh’s Pai Sho tile, which isn’t exactly a good thing.

Above Sokka, Ozai extends his hand. If it weren’t for the wings and the beak and the, well, _everything,_ he’d almost look benevolent—a High Spirit of the city, offering aid for the weary traveller.

And then he speaks, and all that goes right out the gods-damned window.

“Give me the urn,” Ozai says calmly, “or Azula loses her head.”

* * *

Sokka really shouldn’t be surprised.

Why else would Ozai keep his children alive, if not to use them as bargaining chips? He’d done it with Tui, after all—he’d threatened to kill La to keep her in line, and it’d _worked._ Blackmailing is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and it’s also one of the most effective.

But here’s the thing.

This isn’t a deal, not like Ozai says it is. Sokka’s not naive enough to think that Ozai will spare Azula’s life if he hands over the urn. The two options that Ozai has given him both have the same result: Azula dead, Sokka imprisoned, and Zuko next on the list.

If Sokka wants to make it out of here with everyone alive, he’ll have to make his own option. The third option.

Ozai makes a pulling gesture with his hand, and the cables around Sokka’s hands fall away. He slowly pushes himself to his feet, reaching into his pocket and drawing out the urn. It’s warm in his hands, like the blade of a sword left out in the sun. Ozai tracks every movement Sokka makes, tensing up as Sokka opens the lid and peers inside at the phoenix’s ashes.

So. Ozai _did_ know that Sokka had the urn. If he knew, then why didn’t he do something about it? Why wait until now? Why—

Sokka glances down and catches sight of his own reflection. It’s a shock to his system, because yes, he has white hair—but there, right in the middle of his forehead, is a glowing white mark.

It’s a mark he knows well, a curved line with a dot centred beneath it. The Mark of the Wise. It’s the mark Sokka probably would’ve earned if he’d ever gone ice-dodging, and seeing it now is like a punch to the gut.

And then he feels it. For the first time, Sokka feels it: the slight, lingering presence of something else at the back of his mind. 

It’s like when he’s forgotten something that he should remember, hovering just out of reach. But this isn’t some forgotten thought—Sokka knows, instinctively, that this is Tui. _This,_ this consciousness skirting around the borders of his mind, is Tui. For now, she’s dormant, lying in wait...but she’s still _there._

Just like that, everything clicks. It’s almost laughably easy to see the big picture when all the pieces fall into place. Ozai not harming him, using blackmail instead of just taking the urn, removing Sokka’s bonds when he easily could’ve used them to force Sokka into handing the urn over...

Ozai’s backed himself into a corner. He’s brought Tui back onto the playing field by making Sokka her host, but at the same time, he’s also turned Sokka into a living, breathing, walking extension of Tui’s territory.

In other words, Sokka’s _untouchable._

Ozai can’t hurt him. As much as he hates it, Sokka is Tui’s property—which means that if Ozai hurts him, he’ll be committing a crime against Tui herself. And Sokka doubts that even Ozai is stupid enough to go up against the spirit of the actual gods-damned _moon._

And if Sokka’s body is, in and of itself, Tui’s territory…

Well, it looks like he’s just found his third option.

Sokka tips the ashes out onto his hand, rolling them around and admiring how they fall against each other like black sand. Ozai twitches almost imperceptibly, his jaw tightening with tension.

 _“Well?”_ the king grinds out. “Will it be the ashes, or Azula’s life?”

Sokka looks up at him. He smiles, falling back on the reassuringly foreign feeling of Tui residing in his mind. As long as she’s here, he’s safe. As long as he’s Tui’s host, he gets automatic immunity.

So Sokka looks Ozai dead in the eye and says, _“Fuck. You.”_

And then he does what is quite possibly the most impulsive decision of his life: he shoves his fist into his mouth and swallows the ashes whole.

* * *

_Note to self,_ Sokka thinks, _phoenix ashes are disgusting._

They taste like sawdust and smoke and, well, just general _ash._ Sokka chokes, but the damage is already done—the ashes have gone down the hatch, and there’s no bringing them back up.

Ozai _screeches,_ high and shrill, and then—

He lunges. He _lunges,_ claws extended and reaching for Sokka’s neck. Sokka yells and scrambles back, throwing the urn blindly at Ozai’s face and diving to the side.

Oh, shit. He miscalculated. He _seriously_ miscalculated. Ozai, apparently, doesn’t give a shit about going up against Tui, not when he gets angry enough.

Fuck, there’s nowhere to _go._ Ozai’s between him and the river, and the rest of the courtyard is open space. Sokka stumbles back, water sloshing around his ankles, as Ozai sends the cables of Sokka’s former bonds in his direction.

Sokka throws himself to the side, wincing as the cables pass so close to his ear that he hears the whistle of their movement. He _cannot_ keep this up. He’s tired, and he’s weaponless, and his knee is halfway broken. He needs a plan. He needs a—

“Get onto the platform!” Azula shouts. 

...Yeah, that works.

Sokka ducks another one of Ozai’s attacks and stares around wildly, trying to see what the hell Azula’s talking about. It’s when she jerks her head frantically at the side of the courtyard that he sees it: there’s a raised platform running along three sides of the yard, corresponding with the balconies above it. It’s only slightly above ankle height, which makes it the driest part of the whole yard, and—

_Oh._

Azula wants him out of the water. Whatever plan she’d had before obviously still applies now, and for it to work Ozai has to be alone in the water.

Sokka takes off running towards the side of the courtyard. Under normal circumstances, this would be easy.

These are not normal circumstances. Sokka’s limping, badly, and the water around his ankles isn’t doing him any favours. He can hear the splash of water behind him as Ozai closes the distance between them, accompanied with—strangely enough—the skittering sound of roof tiles shifting above his head.

It happens so quickly that by the time Sokka registers it, it’s already over. There’s a flurry of movement from two directions: first, there’s Ozai, his one functional wing outstretched, charging at Sokka from the river—

And second, there’s Zuko, dropping down from the roof above in his dragon form, his mouth gaping open to blow a torrent of fire right in Ozai’s face.

Sokka’s not proud of it, but the sheer shock of having a one-and-a-half tonne dragon drop down in front of him has him falling back onto his ass. He sits there in the water and stares numbly as Zuko lashes out his tail, driving Ozai back towards the river. On the other side of Zuko, Ozai’s having much the same reaction: the shock of seeing his son again is painted all over his face.

Zuko doesn’t seem to care. He prowls in the space between Sokka and Ozai, smoke curling from his nostrils. The message is clear: _back off._

Ozai doesn’t back off. The second that he snaps out of his shock, Ozai does the _exact fucking opposite_ of backing off—he throws out his hands to send spirit cables hurtling at Zuko’s legs. 

Zuko twists to the side to avoid them, and the cables slam into the ground just shy of Sokka’s feet. _That’s_ what finally shakes him back into reality—he scrambles to his feet, ignoring how his knee shakes beneath his weight, and hobbles towards the platform.

The second Sokka starts moving again, Zuko goes from defensive to offensive. He barrels right at Ozai’s face so quickly that the king only has enough time to pull up a shield made of knotted spirit tendrils—a shield that Zuko promptly shatters, sending Ozai flying back towards the river to land heavily on his back.

Zuko banks sideways and makes a direct beeline for the closest patch of platform. Sokka could cry with relief—he’s almost to the edge of the courtyard, and if he and Zuko can get onto dry land now then Azula will be free to carry out her attack.

But then his knee—his _stupid_ knee—

There’s no warning. Sokka just—he doesn’t even _know_ what he does. He jars his foot somehow, or he lands on his ankle wrong, but whatever the case, it ends in his knee crumpling beneath him like a leaf underfoot.

Sokka goes down like a rock in freefall. He lands hard on his hands and knees with a splash that has him coughing out water and biting back a curse. He tries moving his leg and nearly screams at the burst of pain that lances up his thigh.

Okay. So moving’s not an option. He’ll have to—to crawl. Or something. He reaches out and digs his fingers into the ground before him, gritting his teeth.

But Ozai’s already getting back to his feet. Azula’s tied up, and Zuko’s too far away. Sokka is a clear target, vulnerable and weaponless, and it comes as no surprise when Ozai raises his hands in preparation to strike.

Azula’s roar of, _“Zuko, behind you!”_ is so loud that Sokka drops right back to the ground, shoving his hands over his ears. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zuko stops dead just short of the platform. He whirls around, catching sight of Sokka on his knees in river water, and—

And he changes course.

He wrenches himself to the left, careening sideways at an angle that can’t be good for his back. Sokka watches, nonplussed, as Zuko wheels back towards the centre of the courtyard. What is he _doing?_ It doesn’t look like he has a set destination in mind. He’s just turning, and the rest of his body is turning with him, and—

_Oh._

Zuko’s tail, curving sharply from the turn that he’s just made, catches Sokka around the side like a whip. Sokka goes flying, hitting the platform so hard he swears he hears his knee crack all over again. He pushes himself up, dazedly realising that he’s now got a perfect side view of Azula.

She’s still sitting with her hands bound behind her back, her palms pressed together so she can’t firebend without burning herself. But for now, at least, it’s working to her advantage—she’s got the first two fingers of both her hands held straight out, in a move that Sokka recognises from her attack on Tui.

In one half of the split second before the strike, Sokka realises why Zuko pushed him onto the platform. In the other half, he turns—and sees Zuko still in the water.

And then Azula brings her hands down, and the courtyard lights up white.

* * *

Sokka throws himself down against the platform and buries his face in his arms. The lightning only lasts a second before it’s gone, but that second feels like the longest second of Sokka’s life.

The lightning is brilliantly, blindingly white. For the moment that it lights up the courtyard, Sokka can’t see a single gods-damned thing. Every hair on his body stands up from the static, and the boom of thunder that follows the strike is so loud it rattles his skull.

And then it’s over. Sokka raises his head and blinks the spots out of his vision, waiting for the world to come back into focus. There’s a dull ringing in his ears, sounding almost like the whine of the monorail on its track.

The first thing he sees is Zuko: a twitching, tangled, crimson mess. He’s lying on his side near the middle of the courtyard, half-submerged in water, little bolts of lightning arcing over his scales.

The second thing he sees is Ozai: a twitching, tangled, less crimson mess. Except Ozai…

Ozai’s _still standing._

He’s standing like he’s about to keel over at any minute, but he’s _still standing._ He looks demented. His robes are little more than ash. Smoke curls off his shoulders. His five-pronged crown is lying in the water next to Sokka, and his hair has come undone completely in its absence. Sokka stares at Ozai, at the scorch marks on his skin and the burnt patches on his wings, and wonders just how much it’ll take to kill him.

Ozai barks out a cackling laugh that cuts through the ringing in Sokka’s ears.“Really, Azula? You would use that against me? The technique that _I_ taught you?”

Sokka glances at Azula out of the corner of his eye. She’s staring, petrified, at her father. For once, her face spells out her thoughts so clearly that even Sokka can read them:

_It was supposed to kill him._

And it was. Sokka might have only known what the plan was a half-second before Azula executed it, but he _knows_ that the siblings were trying to kill Ozai. And the plan should’ve _worked_ —how Ozai survived a full-body bolt, Sokka has no idea. Zuko, on the other hand…

Ozai’s train of thought seems to be running parallel to Sokka’s, because he turns to his son with a tilting movement that makes him look like he’s drunk. He staggers towards Zuko the way a man in the desert would stagger towards an oasis mirage, the water around him splashing wildly with every step.

 _Not Zuko,_ Sokka thinks weakly. Azula starts straining against her bonds, even though they all know that she won’t be able to break free. _Please. Please. Not Zuko._

Sokka’s limbs feel like they’re weighed down with lead as he struggles upright, tumbling into the water. Residual electricity buzzes through his body. His knee buckles, and he crashes to the ground.

Get up. He has to get up.

He fumbles around in the water uselessly, fingers catching on Ozai’s crown. The splashing of his movements is deafening in the silence, but Ozai doesn’t even turn around as he crouches before his son.

“I think,” Ozai sings, sounding eerily like Azula when she was in the palace, “it’s time to finish what I started.”

Sokka doesn’t realise what Ozai’s talking about until he reaches out and strokes a knuckle down Zuko’s snout, almost tenderly. There’s a snap and pop of lightning, but Ozai doesn’t seem to care. He slides his hands down to cup Zuko’s jaw, preparing to snap his neck in two the way he had before.

He never gets to do it.

The crown in Sokka’s hand is innocently light, even as he drives it further between Ozai’s shoulder blades. The pointed tip slides in so easily Sokka can’t help but wonder if the crown was made with this in mind, to double as a headpiece and a weapon.

Ozai’s back arches at an unnatural angle, and a choked gasp spills from his lips. Sokka leans forward and hooks his other arm around Ozai’s neck, pulling him back so that the force of the stab doesn’t send him falling forward.

It’s a horrible feeling, holding a dying thing. Sokka squeezes his eyes shut and presses his lips together, turning his head away as Ozai jerks and twitches in his grip, both of his clawed hands scrabbling at Sokka’s forearm desperately. The crown slides in a little deeper, all the way up to the lowest tier of prongs. Blood begins to dribble from the wound. It’s darker than usual, like it was festering inside Ozai’s body even when he was still alive.

Ozai’s one unbroken wing flails uselessly. Feathers bat at Sokka’s face and hands, and it’s sickeningly easy to push them away. Ozai’s getting weaker by the second, and his wings are the first to go limp.

As the flow of blood begins to slow, Ozai’s grip on Sokka’s arm relaxes. His chin starts digging into Sokka’s elbow as the rest of his body goes slack, turning into literal dead weight. When Ozai finally stills completely, Sokka opens his eyes.

Ozai’s face is tipped back to the sky, his head lolling onto Sokka’s shoulder. His mouth is ajar. His eyes are glazed over, beady and black and marble-like. He looks like a stuffed body in a museum, preserved with taxidermy. The gleam of the crown in his back almost looks like a plaque: _Ozai, High Spirit, died from mortal wounds._

Suddenly, the body feels like a curse. Sokka drops it into the water and staggers back, watching as Ozai crumples into a heap of bloody feathers.

He just—he just _killed_ someone. Ozai was alive, and now he's not, and Sokka is the reason. 

(And isn’t it bizarre, that Ozai died so easily?)

The sound of Zuko taking a rattling breath shakes Sokka back to reality. He can't afford to break down now. He stumbles forward, tripping over Ozai's body, and falls to his knees in front of Zuko.

Zuko, who's still unmoving, his eyes closed. Sokka stares at him, breathing hard. Somewhere behind him, Azula makes a sound that sounds like a cross between a gasp and a sob.

“Well,” Sokka says hoarsely to no one in particular, “that was anticlimactic.”

Then he lists sideways and collapses. Like an actor in a gods-damned play.

* * *

He wakes up what must be barely thirty seconds later, because there’s a stinging pain in his cheek and Azula’s standing over him, her hand raised in preparation to slap him again.

 _“Ow,”_ Sokka complains. “Don’t slap me.”

Azula doesn’t slap him. Instead, she reaches down and yanks him up by the front of his robes, then practically throws him at Zuko.

 _“Fix him,_ you idiot!” she yells. Sokka blinks down at Zuko’s motionless body. He holds his hands out in front of him like he’s reading an invisible map.

“Huh?” he asks. His brain is still sluggish. Azula’s words are fragmented, disjointed. She’s not making any sense. 

Azula grabs his wrists and slams them down onto Zuko’s scales. He’s warm, really warm, and Sokka bites back the urge to fall asleep right there on Zuko's side. _“Fix. Him.”_ She tightens her grip around his wrist until it’s painful. “Waterbenders can heal, can’t they?”

“But I’m not a—”

“No,” Azula says, “but Tui is.”

_Tui?_

It’s like Sokka’s finally been slammed back into his body. He—holy _shit._ Zuko’s just been shot full of _lightning._ Dear gods, Sokka can see the starburst mark stretching across his chest.

“Oh my gods,” he says. “Oh my _gods_ —”

Azula slaps his hand. “Snap out of it,” she growls, then reaches up and pokes him in the forehead. Right where the Mark of the Wise appeared. “And _call her.”_

Sokka forces himself to breathe in until his heart feels less like it’s about to explode. He smooths his hands out over Zuko’s scales, then closes his eyes.

 _Hey, Tui,_ he thinks, trying to ignore how stupid he feels. _Uh. Is this how I’m meant to call you? I’m not exactly used to hosting spirits._

Nothing happens. Sokka breathes out and tries to clear his mind. Shit, he really should’ve joined Aang in his meditation sessions.

 _Tui,_ he thinks again. _Please. I need your help._

The moment that Tui arrives is a physical one. Sokka can _feel_ the second presence in his mind, spreading over his thoughts like a sheen of cool water.

 _I am not a pet that answers to your every summons,_ Tui says coldly. Sokka doesn’t so much hear her voice as sense it, a vibration that runs all along the inside of his skull. _You do not ‘call’ me. I come when I wish._

 _That’s cool,_ Sokka says back. _But my friend’s kind of dying. And I don’t know how to bend. If you could help out, that would be great._

Sharing his body with a spirit is weird. Even as Tui falls silent, she’s still _there._ Sokka can feel her, hovering in the back of his mind like an intrusive thought. The idea of having someone with him at all times, of never being alone in his own head...he doesn’t like it.

 _I owe you no debts,_ Tui finally says. _I have no obligation to do this. The girl killed my last host._

Sokka winces. Well, he mentally winces; his physical body remains still as a statue. _Yeah, sorry about that. But if you’re going to make a decision, could you, I dunno, make it before my friend dies from his wounds?_

Tui lapses into a distinctly contemplative silence. Sokka holds his metaphorical breath.

 _I will heal him,_ she says at last, _but on one condition._

 _Name it,_ Sokka says instantly. He might regret it later, but right now, he doesn’t care.

 _You give me full control of your body._ Tui’s voice is resolute. _Every muscle, every nerve, every bone. Full control._

 _Done,_ Sokka says. He hopes he isn’t doing anything stupid. _As long as you give it back after._

 _I will,_ Tui replies. That cool feeling over his mind gets a little stronger. _Now?_

_Now._

And then—there’s no better word to describe it—Tui _pushes._

Being shunted aside in his own body is an experience that Sokka kind of never wants to have again. One moment, he’s the one in control, and the next, he’s become little more than a spectator. It’s bizarre to watch his own hands—to _feel_ his own hands—moving of an accord that isn’t his. And, worst of all, he can’t even do anything about it.

Tui kneels down and draws up a thin stream of water from the courtyard around then, then pools it over the wound on Zuko’s chest. She lays Sokka’s hands there, one over the other, and lowers his head.

Sokka watches in quiet wonder as the water begins to glow. It glows whiter than the blue light of Katara’s healing, a pure silver shimmer that’s reminiscent of _(duh)_ moonlight. Tui works the water into the nooks and crannies of the wound, feeling out the landscape of Zuko’s pain.

It feels like it takes forever, but Tui finally removes Sokka’s hands from Zuko’s chest. Zuko’s breathing is coming easier now, more even than it was before. 

_Thank you,_ Sokka breathes reverently. _Thank you. Can I have my body back?_

Tui...doesn’t answer. She stands, wiping off Sokka’s hands on his robes, and turns to Azula.

“There,” she says, with Sokka’s voice. “It is done.”

Azula’s gaze darts up to Sokka’s forehead. Is the Mark of the Wise back? Sokka tries to glance at his reflection in the water to see, but his head won’t move. It’s completely under Tui’s control.

A spike of fear shoots through Sokka. He tries to move his hand. Nothing.

 _Tui,_ he says. _Tui, give me back my body._

Tui ignores him. She turns away from Zuko and starts limping towards the palace—which is something the real Sokka would _never_ do. Zuko’s eyes are beginning to crack open, and he’s stirring like he’s about to get up. If Sokka were the one in control of his body, he’d be right there by Zuko’s scaly side, helping him to his feet.

But he isn’t in control of his body. He is totally, completely, one-hundred-percent not in control of his body.

 _Tui._ He tries to keep his voice level, which is a losing battle. He knows that Tui can feel his panic. _We had a deal. You said you'd give it back when it was over._

 _I did say that,_ she replies coolly. _It's not over yet. La is still waiting for me._

 _And Zuko’s waiting for_ **_me!_ ** Sokka yells back. Gods, he’s—he's fucking useless like this. He can’t even turn around and look back to check on Zuko and Azula, because Tui’s the one in control. _Give me back my body, right now, or—_

 _Or?_ Tui turns and pushes open a side gate. Sokka pushes and shoves and tries to get his body to do _anything,_ but it just keeps on moving calmly towards a destination Sokka doesn’t know. _What, exactly, will you do to stop me?_

There’s the scuffing of footsteps behind them. Azula, probably. Tui ignores her. Sokka wishes he could scream at Azula with his mind and tell her that he’s almost certain that he’s just accidentally handed over his body to the Moon Spirit forever.

Azula’s hand catches around his elbow. “What the _hell_ are you doing?” she hisses. “You’re just going to leave? You’re not even going to—”

She sucks in a breath as Tui turns around. Sokka’s sure that the Mark of the Wise must be on his forehead, because Azula glances up at it before schooling her face into neutrality.

“Tui,” she says formally, ducking her head into a respectful nod. Tui doesn’t return it. “If I may ask, where are you going?”

“My pool,” Tui says coldly. Sokka shudders at the sound of his own voice speaking words that aren’t his. 

“I see.” Azula’s face is unreadable. “And are you planning to release my friend’s body anytime soon?”

Tui stops dead. She faces Azula head-on, staring down at her the way a gardener would stare at a weed.

“He promised me full control," she says flatly. "I will not return his body until I have no more use for it."

Azula raises a brow. “Really?” she asks. “Permanent occupation is below you, Tui. Have you stooped so low that you must resort to possessing your host against his will?”

“I have,” Tui answers calmly. It's clear that Azula's trying to bait her, but it won't work—Tui is an old spirit, and she knows better than to rise to petty insults. 

Azula’s hand lands on Sokka’s shoulder, squeezing so tight that Tui is forced to come to a halt. She glares down at Azula, who’s staring at her with an expression so darkly fierce that it’s a miracle Tui doesn’t buckle right then and there.

“Give it back,” Azula says, her voice low and deadly. 

Tui scoffs. “And if I don’t?”

Azula moves so quickly that Sokka feels the crown before he sees it. The pointed tip, still wet with Ozai’s blood, digs into the soft underside of his chin. Azula pushes it in, hard enough that Tui is forced to tip Sokka’s head back lest she let the crown draw blood.

“Or,” Azula says delicately, “I get rid of this host, too.”

If Sokka still had control of his lungs, he'd be holding his breath. Azula's grip doesn't so much as waver.

 _Listen to her,_ he warns Tui. _She'll do it. You know she will._

Tui hesitates. But they all know that Azula _would_ do it, if she had to. Tui, perhaps, knows it better than anyone else—considering the fact that Azula's the one who killed her last host.

When Tui gives him back his body, it feels like the waning moon. Slowly, so slowly, she inches off that fine line between owner and tenant, receding back into the spectator’s seat as Sokka steps up and takes the controls.

It’s like his skin shifts a little, finally accommodating _him_ and not some spirit. Sokka breathes a sigh of relief, and Azula drops the crown as the Mark of the Wise fades from his forehead.

“You’re an idiot,” she says promptly. “Why in Agni’s name would you give her _full control?”_

“It was the only way to get her to heal Zuko!” Sokka defends. Azula shakes her head.

“How many times do I have to say it? High Spirits love to bargain.” She jabs a finger into the centre of his chest. “You could have negotiated. You could have offered her another price!”

“And how many times do _I_ have to say it?” Sokka snaps back. “I don’t know these things. I’m _human._ Well—” His heart stutters a bit as he reaches up to tug on his moon-white hair. “I’m as close as I can get.”

Azula’s face doesn’t soften, exactly, but she doesn’t slap him either. "Fine," she says, rolling her eyes. “You get a pass, just this once. Now come on. Zuzu’s waiting.”  
  


* * *

When Sokka sees Zuko, his vision tunnels.

His breath starts to come in little gasps, and his chest feels too tight. Azula mutters something about telling the rest of the palace about Ozai’s death and all but sprints out of the courtyard, leaving Sokka and Zuko alone.

(Well, alone except for Ozai’s body, but. Still.)

Zuko’s standing on his feet, still in his dragon form. There’s a new scar on his chest, angry red and raw-looking. Sokka’s careful to avoid jostling it as he steps over Ozai’s body and reaches up to cup Zuko’s snout in his hands.

“Hey,” he breathes. The relief is almost too much. He feels like he’ll overflow with it, like he’ll start spilling light from his mouth and ears and eyes. Zuko huffs out a warm breath, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.

“We’re alive,” Sokka whispers into the air between them, pressing the words into the scales between Zuko’s horns. And then he says it again, over and over: “We’re alive, we’re alive, we’re _alive.”_

Zuko makes a low noise in the back of his throat and nudges Sokka’s chin. Sokka lets out a laugh that’s really more of a sob—Ozai’s body is still smoking at his heels, but all he can do is wrap his arms around Zuko and hold him tight.

They did it. They might not be okay, not really, but they’re both breathing, and for now that has to be enough.

Beneath his hands, Zuko’s scales move and merge, blending together to form dirty scratched-up skin. Sokka squeezes his eyes shut and listens to the soft sighing sound that he’s come to associate with Zuko shifting; sure enough, it only takes a few moments before Zuko’s very human arms are coming up to wrap around his shoulders.

He presses his nose into the space where Zuko’s neck meets his shoulder and breathes in. Zuko smells like sweat and smoke and river water, which is by no means a pleasant combination, but Sokka finds that he doesn’t really care. He’ll take sweaty Zuko over dead Zuko any day.

Zuko’s hand lifts to idly brush through Sokka’s hair. It’s still untied, hanging loose and dripping wet. He should find a hair-tie. “You okay?”

Sokka snorts. “I’m the new host for the moon spirit,” he rasps, his voice cracked and hoarse. “Do you _think_ I’m okay?”

Zuko’s quiet for a moment, his fingers gently tugging the hair at the back of Sokka’s neck. “No,” he finally says, and he sounds a little resigned. “I don’t think you are.”

“Congratulations,” Sokka says. “Right answer. You win a prize.”

Zuko’s arms tighten momentarily. “Do you—do you want to—?” He jerks his chin at the palace. “There’s food. And water. And, uh, medicine.”

“Food sounds good,” Sokka says, and then glances down at his arms. They’re burnt and scratched and bleeding. The rest of him isn’t doing much better. “Medicine’s probably good, too. As long as it’s not from the Face-Stealer.”

Zuko pokes him in the back. “Hey, that medicine saved my life. Don’t disrespect it.”

Sokka grins into Zuko’s shirt, even though he can’t see it. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, jerkbender. You owe me a proper meal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's play guess the ghibli scene! there's a scene here that's meant to be the same as one from the movie, though it's obviously not in the same context. i'm kinda curious as to how many people will pick up on it.  
> @ the commenters last chapter who suggested that sokka drink the ashes: when i read those comments i nearly screamed, because sokka eating the ashes was something i planned way back in chapter 9. how?? did you predict it???  
> (also, fyi: this is in no way an accurate depiction of lightning conduction)


	12. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have three days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished writing this and then immediately posted it without editing and that's okay!!

Azula meets them at the main gate, pursing her lips when she sees how heavily Zuko’s leaning against Sokka’s side. She hooks Zuko’s other arm around her shoulders, and together, they march into the palace.

The word’s already started to spread of Ozai’s demise. The sprites give them a wide berth, eyeing Sokka’s hair and Zuko’s wound and Azula’s...well, her presence itself is probably enough to cause a stir, seeing as she was trying to burn the whole place down a day and a half ago. The point is, none of the spirits try to stop them as they stagger towards the elevator at the end of the hallway.

None except one.

Toph seemingly materializes out of thin air as they step into the elevator, following them in and closing the doors behind her. She tucks herself under Sokka’s arm and sniffs at his shirt, wrinkling her nose.

“You smell like ash,” she says. 

“Probably because I ate a bunch of it,” Sokka replies, reaching over her head to pull the lever. 

Toph pauses.

“Okay,” she says, her voice carefully calm. “That makes sense.”

Sokka snorts. It doesn’t make even the slightest bit of sense, but he appreciates Toph trying to act like it does. 

On the other side of the elevator, Azula leans against the railing and closes her eyes. Zuko rests his head on Sokka’s shoulder, effectively trapping Sokka between him and Toph. Of all the places to be trapped, Sokka thinks, he could certainly do worse than this.

The rest of the elevator ride passes in silence. Sokka’s too tired to be confused when the doors open onto the penthouse floor instead of some kind of medical clinic, but the question must be written all over his face anyway.

“There’s no infirmary in the palace,” Azula says shortly, striding out of the elevator and down the hall. _Go figure,_ Sokka thinks. “We’ll use my father’s study instead. He keeps—he _kept_ medical supplies in his drawer. The bastard was always paranoid that one day one of us would snap.” She glances at Zuko, who looks half-dead on his feet.

“Wait.” Toph points a finger at Azula. “Did you just call Ozai your _dad?!”_

Azula goes rigid. That’s right; Toph doesn’t know. Actually, no one knows. Iroh had said that Ozai wiped Azula from the records, and for all that the rest of the palace knows, she might as well be a stray spirit from some other city.

“I’ll put my name back in the records soon,” Azula says stiffly, yanking open the double doors. Strangely enough, the door knockers stay silent. So does Toph, who apparently doesn’t need any more explanation as to who Azula is.

“Cool,” she says instead, falling into step beside Sokka as Azula leads them through the labyrinth of hallways that make up Ozai’s penthouse. The silence stretches all the way up until they reach Ozai’s study, and Azula shoves the door open like it’s personally offended her.

The study looks like Ozai’s just left it. There are half-written papers on the desk, a brush still propped up against an inktray, a fire still crackling in the grate. Sokka shudders when he catches sight of the pit that he and Zuko had fallen into.

Azula falls into a plush armchair by the door, going loose and lanky like she’s forgotten how to keep her muscles connected to her bones. “I hate this place,” she mutters sourly, bringing her knees up to her chest. From the way she glares at the papers on Ozai’s desk, Sokka wonders if this office was the place where he officially banished her.

Zuko peels away from Sokka’s side and makes a beeline towards the centre of the room, not even bothering to find another chair to sit in. He just flops face-down onto the carpet, which...probably isn’t hygienic, but okay.

Toph breaks away from Sokka’s side, too, leaving him with nothing to do other than follow her as she marches over to Ozai’s desk. He jumps a little when she slams her hand onto the desk, waking up Ozai’s messenger weasel.

“Up!” Toph barks. The weasel squeaks and scrambles to stand upright like a soldier at attention. Toph clears her throat and starts speaking.

“Tell Jet,” she begins, and the brush and paper on Ozai’s desk immediately begin writing, “that he needs to get Ming to send up food. Two baskets of dumplings, four bowls of fishball noodles, and the biggest pot of tea she can find.” 

“Tea is just hot leaf juice,” Zuko mumbles into the carpet. Toph ignores him. On the desk, the weasel finishes chewing up the paper, then swallows and blinks up at them.

It only takes a few seconds for the weasel to cough out a puff of fire and a message from Jet. Toph snaps her fingers at Sokka expectantly. 

“What’s it say?”

Sokka gingerly reaches out and tugs the paper away from the weasel’s mouth. “‘Kou, you owe me for this’,” he reads out. “That’s it.”

Toph snorts. “That’s Jet for you. Never turns down an opportunity to get us in debt.” Once it’s clear that she’s not planning to send another message, the weasel lies down and curls up to sleep. Sokka reaches out to pat it absentmindedly, running his fingers through its fur.

Toph throws herself into Ozai’s chair, leaning back and kicking her feet up onto his desk. Sokka leans across and shoves her foot out of the way, reaching for the inkbrush and a piece of paper.

“How do you send messages outside the Upper Ring?” he asks Toph. “I need to write Iroh a letter.”

“There’s messenger hawks in the aviary,” Zuko responds. Sokka turns to look at him. He holds up his hand and points towards the curtained-off entrance to what was once the phoenix’s home. “They roost high up. You can’t see them unless you know where to look.”

“Or how to call them,” Azula adds, and raises two fingers to her mouth. She whistles, a single high note. 

There’s a rustling sound from the aviary, and then a mottled brown-and-red mass swoops out from behind the curtains. The hawk doesn’t land right away—it circles around the office once, twice, like it’s doing surveillance, before finally landing gracefully on Ozai’s desk.

Sokka gapes at it. It’s bigger than any hawk he’s ever seen, and he’s never seen a hawk with such deep red plumage either. The hawk clicks its beak at him impatiently, like it’s saying: _well, what are you waiting for? Hurry up._

Sokka doesn’t waste time with a long letter. He dashes down a quick message—barely more than a note, really. _Iroh_ , he writes. _We won. Come to the palace. We’re in Ozai’s study._

He has to blow on the ink a few times to make sure it’s dry, all while the hawk stares at him like it’s trying to decide whether or not biting him will make him write faster. Finally, when he’s sure that the ink won’t smear beyond recognition, Sokka rolls the note up into a tube and slides it into the harness on the hawk’s back.

“Iroh, the Jasmine Dragon,” he tells it. “Lower Ring. You know where that is, right?”

The hawk, predictably, doesn’t answer. It cocks its head at him and regards him with beady black eyes, which remind Sokka a bit too much of Ozai. He shudders, stepping back as the hawk spreads its wings and flies out the open window.

Suddenly, as he stands there and watches the hawk fly away, Sokka feels so, so tired. The adrenaline is finally wearing off completely, leaving him with an exhaustion that goes all the way down to his bones. 

“Sokka.”

Sokka turns. Zuko’s lying on his side, staring up at him. He pats the carpet beside him.

Sokka limps over to him, not really knowing what to do. He sits down by Zuko’s head, studying the lightning wound on Zuko’s chest. He’ll have to ask Azula where the medicine is. And he’ll have to go get Aang and Katara from their cave before they wake up and start panicking. And—

“Sok- _ka.”_ Zuko makes grabby hands at him. “Stop thinking. Sleep.”

Sleep...sounds good. Sleep sounds _really_ good. But they need to eat, and to treat their wounds, and—

“I _said,”_ Zuko says, reaching out to gently pull Sokka down onto the carpet beside him, “stop thinking.”

Zuko’s right. The worst of the battle is over, and Sokka needs to stop overthinking.

He takes a deep breath and lies down. He’s not sure how close he’s allowed to get to Zuko, but Zuko, in his half-asleep state, doesn’t seem to care. He rolls right up to Sokka and slings a hand over his waist, tugging him in closer.

“Sleep,” Zuko repeats, the word muffled by Sokka’s shoulder. Sokka pushes half-heartedly at his arm, but Zuko just tightens his grip.

“The food’s coming soon,” Sokka tries, even though he knows it’s a futile attempt. Zuko shakes his head, his hair tickling Sokka’s chin. 

“Food can wait,” he mumbles, curling up into Sokka’s chest in a way that makes Sokka’s heart feel like it’s simultaneously melting and exploding. “Sleep can’t.”

Sokka meets Azula’s eye over Zuko’s shoulder. She pulls a face, which Sokka takes as permission.

“Okay,” he murmurs into Zuko’s hair, letting his eyes drift closed. “Okay. We can sleep.”

* * *

When Sokka wakes up, it’s to a very different scene than the one he fell asleep to.

Zuko’s still pressed against his chest, breathing softly, but they’re not on the carpet anymore. They’re bundled up in sleeping bags like the ones used in the workers’ dorms, soft pillows beneath their heads.

Sokka’s too sleepy to be scared, so instead of wondering who put them in the sleeping bags, he raises his head and peers around at the rest of the office. Azula and Toph are still sleeping in their respective chairs, though pillows have been stuffed under their heads and blankets draped over their shoulders. And, on the far side of the room, in sleeping bags of their own…

Sokka’s wide-awake in seconds, bolting upright to gape. He scrubs at his eyes, just in case he’s hallucinating, but no—Aang and Katara are very much there, lying side-by-side in sleeping bags and snoring like there’s no tomorrow. Next to them are their satchels, as well as Sokka’s weapons.

“Ah,” someone says pleasantly. “You’re awake. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Sokka whips his head around, tensing up in case he needs to go for his sword. He relaxes the second he sees who it is: Iroh, sitting cross-legged against the door and watching them all with a fond look on his face.

“Iroh,” he rasps out, then coughs. He hasn’t had a proper drink in hours. “You—I—”

He gestures wordlessly at Aang and Katara, who Iroh’s obviously brought here. Iroh raises a brow as Sokka tries to find the right words for his thoughts, but none come. 

Finally, Sokka sighs. He drops his gaze to the tray of food by Iroh’s side, then holds out his hand.

“A cup of tea sounds great,” he says hoarsely. Iroh smiles genially, already reaching for the teapot.

By the time Iroh hands Sokka a cup of lukewarm jasmine tea, he’s calmed down enough to be able to actually hold a conversation. Well, in reality, he doesn’t want to hold a conversation. He wants to ask a question.

So he does.

“Iroh,” Sokka says, staring down at his tea, “what happens to me now?”

Iroh sets down his teacup on the tray with a click. “I’m afraid you will have to be more specific than that,” he says gently. Sokka swallows.

“I’m Tui’s host now,” he says. Saying the words out loud is...it makes things feel so much more real, and Sokka doesn’t know how he feels about it. “Does that mean that I have to stay here? Am I a spirit now?”

Iroh hums. “It is hard to say,” he muses. Sokka’s stomach sinks. “I have never heard of a case of permanent possession with a human and a spirit. But no, I do not think you would have to stay in Ba Sing Se.”

Sokka’s head snaps up. He stares at Iroh. “I don’t?”

Iroh shakes his head. “No. You are not a spirit, Sokka; you are a human _hosting_ a spirit. I believe you would be free to enter and leave Ba Sing Se as you wish.”

Sokka exhales and slumps back against his pillow. Knowing that he doesn’t have to stay in Ba Sing Se takes a massive weight off his shoulders. If he’d had to stay here…

Sokka glances down at Zuko, sleeping soundly next to him. He wouldn’t hate it, exactly, but there’s no way he would’ve liked it either.

He and Iroh sit in silence, listening to the soft cadence of everyone else’s breathing. Sokka holds his tea until it goes cold, at which point Iroh leans over and reheats it for him. He knows he should probably wake the others up, but they all look so peaceful that Sokka can’t bring himself to disturb them.

He doesn’t realise how light it’s getting until the first rays of sunlight start sliding across the floor. Sokka turns his head and watches the sunrise; he feels so quietly content right now, with everyone alive and safe, that it almost feels unnatural. He’d forgotten what it felt like to just let himself breathe.

The silence is broken by a rustle from the far corner. Sokka glances over, and—well—that breathing he was talking about before? Yeah, forget that.

Katara’s stirring, one hand coming up to rub at her eyes. That’s right—she and Aang were meant to wake up at sunrise, and it’s sunrise. Sokka stares at her; he almost can’t bring himself to believe that she’s actually here.

But she _is_ here. She’s here, and she’s human, and she’s waking up. 

_“Katara,”_ Sokka breathes, setting down his teacup. He feels like he’s about to cry. His sister blinks blearily at him, then around at the rest of Ozai’s study.

To be fair, Sokka really should’ve anticipated it. If he’d woken up in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, he would’ve freaked out too.

There’s a single beat of silence, where Katara takes in everything around her: the office, the spirits, Sokka with his new white hair. And then, when the beat is over and the panic sets in, she opens her mouth and screams.

* * *

“Katara!” Sokka yells, scrambling over to drop down in front of her and grab her by the shoulders. “Katara, calm _down,_ everything’s fine—”

“Sokka!” She grips him by the wrists, so hard that Sokka winces. “I—you—” Her breath is coming in short, sharp gasps. Sokka suddenly finds himself incredibly glad that there isn’t a lot of water in here for her to panic-bend. “What’s going _on?”_ _  
_  
“It’s a long story,” Sokka says, and then immediately wants to kick himself. What kind of explanation was that? _It’s a long story_ —yeah, no shit. “Just—just calm down, okay? I swear I’ll explain everything—”

“Who the fuck was _that?”_ Toph yells, throwing off her blanket and jumping up onto her feet. Katara screams again, and Toph screams right back, and then Aang’s awake and flying six feet into the air out of pure shock—

“Everybody _shut up!”_ Sokka bellows. For once, Toph and Katara actually listen. They both shut their traps and stare at him, wide-eyed. Well, Katara stares at him. Toph stares a little to the left of him.

Sokka takes a deep breath and pinches his nose. Aang and Katara are both clinging to each other, and Azula and Zuko are sitting upright and watching the scene in front of them with matching expressions of baffled shock. Iroh, the bastard, is sipping tea and doing absolutely nothing to help.

“Aang, Katara,” Sokka begins, gesturing at the rest of the room, “these are...my friends. My new friends. We’re in Ba Sing Se.”

“Wait, there are still people living in Ba Sing Se?” Aang’s nervousness seems to melt away, and he bounds over to Zuko with a bright smile on his face. “Hi! I’m Aang!”

“...Zuko,” Zuko replies bemusedly, reaching up to shake Aang’s outstretched hand. He glances over at Sokka, his brow furrowed. “Do they know we’re…?”

Sokka curses under his breath. _Damn._ He’d been hoping Zuko wouldn’t bring that up. Aang doesn’t seem to care, already bouncing over to Iroh with a, “Ooh, dumplings! Are they vegetarian?”, but Katara narrows her eyes at Zuko and crosses her arms. She instinctively reaches out to tug Sokka closer to her, putting more space between him and this unknown threat. Sokka can’t help but feel a burst of fondness for his baby sister—gods, he’d missed her.

“You’re _what,_ exactly?” she asks, one hand hovering protectively over her water skin. Sokka takes in the guarded look on her face and realises what she’s scared of—in the months before they came to Ba Sing Se, they’d run into their fair share of people who would’ve been happy to hand them over to bender hunters in exchange for a pouch of money. Aang’s already revealed himself as an airbender by flying almost all the way to the gods-damned ceiling when he woke up, and Katara’s trying to gauge whether or not this is going to be a problem.

Zuko looks like he’s debating whether or not to reply, but Azula beats him to it. “We’re spirits,” she says casually, leaning forward to brace her forearms on her knees. “And your brother is, too.”

Hand, meet forehead. Forehead, meet hand.

 _“What,”_ Katara says, her voice so low that it’s not even a question. She whips around to stare at Sokka. “She’s—she’s joking, right?”

Sokka squirms a little under her gaze. “Well, _technically_ I’m just a host, but—”

His voice trails off into nothing as Katara’s stare takes on a distinctly _Sokka what the hell did you do_ quality. It’s a look he’s familiar with, though he’s not quite sure if he’s ever seen it this strong before.

“You guys are _spirits?”_ Aang looks positively delighted. “The monks always used to tell me stories about spirits who looked like humans. Are you guys immortal? Do you have to eat food, or do you just do it ‘cause you feel like it? _Ooh,_ do you have any powers?”

“We’re benders,” Zuko says, looking completely thrown off by this twelve-year-old ball of airbender energy. “Um. Firebenders.”

He summons a handful of fire and holds it up to demonstrate. Aang’s face breaks out in the biggest, brightest grin Sokka’s ever seen, and in the blink of an eye he’s sitting on the ground in front of Zuko and babbling out questions about how firebending works, and how different it is to airbending, and isn’t it so _cool_ that firebenders can make their own fire? Zuko kind of looks like he’s drowning in Aang’s friendliness, but he answers all his questions anyway, and lets Aang poke and prod at the fire in his hands. 

Katara, meanwhile, has gone completely silent. She’s staring at the fire in Zuko’s hands, her eyes wide. Sokka gently reaches out to take her hands.

“Katara,” he says quietly, “you were right. Ba Sing Se is a city of benders. I mean, they’re spirits, but they’re still benders.”

She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes darting to Sokka’s face, and then to the open window. Sokka knows what’s running through her head right now: are there waterbenders?

He squeezes her hands to get her to look at him again. _“Katara,”_ he repeats, and he can’t help the smile that’s spreading across his face. “They have waterbenders.”

The look that slowly blooms on Katara’s face is a mix of wonder and awe and pure shock. “They—” she starts, and then she closes her eyes and swallows. Her voice is hoarser than normal. “They have waterbenders? Master waterbenders?”

Sokka thinks of Pakku, and Yugoda, and all the other waterbenders that he doesn’t know the names of. “Yeah,” he says. “They do.” He squeezes her hands again, and this time, she squeezes back. “Katara, you can find a master.”

Katara blinks open her eyes. There are tears there, brimming at the edges—and what, is Sokka just supposed to _not_ pull her into the tightest hug of her life?

Katara sniffles a bit against his shoulder. “You still have to tell me what you did,” she says into his shoulder. Sokka smiles into her hair.

“Okay,” he says. And then he does.

* * *

Katara cries when he finishes his story. Then she punches him and calls him an idiot. Then she starts crying again. Sokka just hugs her and assures her that it’s okay, he’s fine now, and a little bit of moon spirit isn’t going to change anything.

“I can’t believe I don’t _remember,”_ Katara keeps saying. “This whole time, you were fighting to get us out, and I was—I wasn’t even really _there.”_

“I’m glad you weren’t,” Sokka says fiercely. He thinks of that horrible cramped pool in the Ba Sing Se Zoo and hugs her a little tighter. “You have no idea how glad I am that you weren’t.”

They stay like that, wrapped around each other, until a grumble from Sokka’s stomach reminds him that he hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning. 

He peels away from Katara to find the others already sitting in a circle with the food tray in the centre, Zuko pouring out tea for everyone. Aang’s warmed up to Zuko and Toph so quickly it would be alarming, if it were anyone but Aang. 

Sokka sits down between Zuko and Katara and frowns at the tray. “Wait,” he says. “There are only four bowls. And…” He looks up and does a quick headcount. “...seven people.”

Zuko shrugs. “We’ll just share, then.” He reaches out and takes a bowl of noodles, plus two sets of chopsticks.

In the end, Azula’s the one who ends up with her own bowl, if only because everyone else is too intimidated to ask her to share. The other six of them split off into pairs: Toph and Iroh (which is a _disaster,_ because Toph keeps eating the fishballs and Iroh just lets her), Aang and Katara, and Sokka and Zuko.

...This very quickly turns out to be a problem.

“No, _you_ take it,” Sokka says, pushing the fishball onto Zuko’s spoon with his chopsticks. Zuko wrinkles his nose and tips it onto Sokka’s spoon instead.

“You eat it,” he insists. “You’re the one who got possessed by the Moon Spirit.”

“You’re the one who got hit by lightning.”

“You did more fighting than I did.”

“You got hit more than I did.”

They go back and forth over their noodles until the soup is cold and neither of them have eaten a single bite. Finally, Azula sighs and shoves her own, almost untouched bowl into Zuko’s hands.

“For Agni’s sake, _both of you eat it,”_ she snaps, uncurling her legs and standing. “I’ll go get another bowl.” She strides out of the study without another word.

Iroh wipes his mouth and sets his and Toph’s empty bowl back onto the tray. “I have business to attend to,” he says heavily, rising from his seat. “With Ozai dead, Ba Sing Se needs a new king.” He pauses, eyeing Zuko. “Unless you would like the throne, Nephew?”

Zuko holds up his hands, shaking his head frantically. “No! No, I’m fine, Uncle. You can go ahead.”

Iroh nods and leaves the study, his robes swishing behind him. Sokka watches him go, then turns back to the rest of the group.

Katara’s looking at him weird. Wait, no; she’s looking at Sokka and Zuko weird. There’s an unreadable expression on her face as she looks between them, her lips pressed into a line.

“Hey, Aang,” she says suddenly, “I’m going to go look for a waterbending teacher. Want to come with?”

“Sure!” Aang says enthusiastically. He turns to Toph. “Do you know any master waterbenders?”

Toph stretches her arms above her head so hard Sokka hears her shoulders pop. “I’ll do you one better, Twinkletoes,” she says as she stands. “I’ll come with you and introduce you myself.”

“Cool,” Aang says, as he and Katara both follow Toph out of the study. And then, right before the doors close: “Wait, _Twinkletoes?”_

Toph’s response is muffled by the sound of the doors closing behind them. Sokka listens as the sounds of their footsteps fade away, and then turns to look at Zuko.

“So,” he says.

“So,” Zuko echoes.

Spirits, they’re bad at this. Sokka flails around for something to say before his eyes land on Zuko’s robes, which are still burnt and tattered.

“You should probably dress that,” he says, jerking his chin at the wound on Zuko’s chest. Zuko looks down at it and winces.

“Yeah, I probably should,” he says. Sokka nods and gets up, beelining towards Ozai’s desk.

“Medical supplies?” he asks.

“Third drawer on the left.”

Sokka pulls out the drawer and lets out a low whistle. Ozai, it seems, was fully prepared to get mortally wounded in his own office—there are ointments and medicines of every kind in this drawer, as well as enough bandages to cover Zuko from head to toe in his dragon form. Sokka grabs a roll, as well as a cloth, and turns back around to find Zuko already stripping off his upper robes.

If it weren’t for the giant mottled burn in the middle of Zuko’s chest, Sokka would be blushing so hard his skin would be hot enough to fry an egg on. But as it is, his vision fixes on that burn, and the only thing running through his head is how badly it will scar.

He sits down in front of Zuko wordlessly, then looks around for something to wash the wound with. There’s a pitcher of water on the food tray, despite none of them having asked for or touched it. He might as well use it now.

Sokka reaches over and dunks the cloth in the pitcher, wringing it out before bringing it back in front of Zuko. He takes a deep breath, glancing up to meet Zuko’s eyes.

“This is going to hurt,” he warns. Zuko exhales and nods.

Sokka touches the cloth to Zuko’s wound, and he hisses with pain. Sokka stops, looking up at Zuko to check on him, but Zuko wraps a hand around his wrist and holds it in place.

“Keep going,” he grits out. “I’m fine. Nothing I haven’t felt before.”

Sokka’s heart hurts a little at that, and he can’t help but wonder how much worse it had to have hurt when the scar was on Zuko’s face instead of his chest. Nevertheless, he keeps cleaning the wound and the skin around it, washing the cloth in the pitcher until the water is cloudy with dirt and blood. 

He dries off the skin with Zuko’s discarded robe, then picks up the rolls of bandages and starts wrapping the wound. It’s by no means a professional job, and Zuko will definitely have to get someone else to look at it later, but it’ll do for now.

Sokka finishes off the bandages when there’s more skin covered on Zuko’s torso than not. “There you go,” he says, patting Zuko on the chest with a grin. “Good as new.”

He glances up, and the grin on his face fades. Zuko’s smiling at him, all soft and squishy, and...

And Sokka really wants to kiss him.

He could do it, if he wanted to. He could lean in and just...kiss him.

But he doesn’t. All he can think about is the fact that Ozai’s body is probably still out in the courtyard, and that the wound he’s just bandaged is still fresh. He wonders if the aftermath of battle always feels like this: he’s left with a hundred things he wants to do, but he’s too tired to do any of them.

Whatever Zuko reads in Sokka’s face, it makes him turn away. He plucks the roll of bandages from Sokka’s hands and places it behind him.

“Sleep?” he asks, and Sokka sighs.

“Sleep,” he agrees. Zuko nods and reaches out to drag their sleeping bags over, and they both lie down.

Sokka rolls onto his side to look at Zuko. He’s lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Sokka’s lying on Zuko’s right side, which means he can’t see his scar. 

“Hey,” he says softly. Zuko turns his head to look at him—and the reappearance of the scar shouldn’t make Sokka feel so relieved, but it does. Zuko just doesn’t look like Zuko without it. 

“Hey,” Zuko says back. They stare at each other in silence for a moment. Sokka can feel the weight of something unsaid hanging over them, like a trap waiting to be sprung.

Zuko springs it first.

“Are you going to stay?” he whispers. In the early morning light of Ozai’s office, high and secluded from the rest of the world, it sounds like he’s telling Sokka a secret. A thought that never should’ve been voiced aloud.

Sokka closes his eyes. 

“Maybe,” he says, and he means it. 

* * *

They have three days.

Three days, Zuko says, before Ba Sing Se becomes too dangerous for humans like Aang and Katara. Three days before they lose their human scent, before they start running the risk of getting _too_ entangled in the Spirit World.

 _(Like you,_ is what Zuko doesn’t say, but Sokka hears it anyway. He stares at himself in the mirror, running his hands through his hair and watching his forehead for any sign of a glowing mark.)

Sokka has three days to make a choice.

He’s not entirely human, not anymore—but he’s not a spirit, either. While Katara spars with Pakku in the courtyard, Sokka spends his first day holed up in the library with Azula, who’s trying to venture out into the palace as little as possible. They even enlist Wan Shi Tong and his foxes to help, but they find nothing. 

Azula suggests asking Tui for her input. Sokka thinks back to how he’d felt the last time Tui took control, and he flatly refuses. They keep looking.

There are no records of a human becoming a spirit’s host; animals and other spirits, certainly, but never a human. The closest thing they get is temporary cases of possession, like the spirit tales Gran-Gran used to tell to spook Sokka into behaving. 

Sokka’s arrangement with Tui is anything but temporary. His life is Tui’s life. If he dies, the moon will die with him. It’s a terrifying thought, one that makes Sokka think that maybe he should invest in learning some more self-defense.

It’s that thought that has him going to Piandao, who he knows is a master swordsman. Piandao agrees to coach him on his sword fighting, and Sokka spends his second day learning and unlearning and relearning.

Between trying to find more information and training with Piandao, Sokka doesn’t really see Zuko until the third and final day. When he wakes up at sunrise (and he’d like to know _why_ he wakes up at sunrise, by the way—if anything, he should be waking at moonrise) and realises that he’s barely spoken to Zuko since they took down Ozai, he immediately feels a stab of guilt.

There’s something between him and Zuko. He knows there is. It’s new, and it’s fragile, but it’s there.

So, when Sokka wakes up on the third day, he knows they have to talk.

The others are still sleeping. They’ve been camping out in Ozai’s study ever since they killed him, all of them sleeping together on the floor in a tangled mess of sleeping bags. Sokka carefully extracts himself from what Toph affectionately calls ‘the nest’, trying his best not to jostle Katara.

He looks around for Zuko, but Zuko isn’t there. Neither is Azula. That’s to be expected; in the last two days, Sokka’s discovered that Zuko and Azula both rise at the crack of dawn. It’s a firebender thing, apparently. 

He heads over to the sink in the corner. It’s actually a repurposed bamboo fountain, but they’ve been using it as a sink and it works just fine. He splashes his face with water, rinses out the taste of morning breath, and ties his white hair up in its usual wolf-tail.

It’s not hard to find Zuko. Sokka catches sight of him the second he turns to look out the window. Zuko’s sitting out on Ozai’s balcony in a half-lotus position, his face turned to the rising sun. 

He’s shirtless, revealing the layers and layers of bandages wrapping around his torso. Sokka slides open the balcony door and comes up behind him as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb his meditation, but he’s pretty sure that Zuko hears him anyway.

He sits down next to Zuko and dangles his legs out over the edge of the balcony, slotting them in between the railings. For a moment, he just watches the sun come up over the horizon, bathing Ba Sing Se in faint golden light.

It wouldn’t be so bad for Sokka to stay here. He thinks, maybe, he could even come to love it—to think of it as home. But then he remembers Dad, and Gran-Gran, and Katara and Bato and Aang, and he just...doesn’t know.

“Good morning,” Zuko says quietly, startling Sokka out of his trance. He turns around to find Zuko still in his half-lotus, looking at him with a politely puzzled expression.

“Good morning,” Sokka echoes. They stare at each other for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say.

Sokka breaks it by clearing his throat. “Your bandages,” he says, gesturing at Zuko’s chest. “You should probably change them.”

Zuko blinks and looks down at the white cotton strips stretching across his torso. “Oh,” he says plainly. “Um. Right.” 

He makes to get up, but Sokka holds up his hand. “It’s fine,” he says, stretching and standing. “I need more practice dressing wounds anyway.”

He goes back inside and rummages through the drawers of Ozai’s desk. They’ve turned it into a makeshift medical station, cluttering its surface with ointments and oils and things from the Jasmine Dragon that smell like every plant in the world decided to congregate to a single spot. Sokka finds the roll of bandages easily enough, as well as a cloth he can use to clean the wound. He washes his hands at the sink, then fills an unused bowl from last night’s dinner with water.

He pads back out onto the balcony. Zuko watches him over his shoulder as he sits down behind him, dipping his hands into the bowl of water and gesturing for Zuko to lean forward.

A comfortable silence falls between them as Sokka wets the edges of the bandages for easier removal, then starts to peel them off Zuko’s chest. The bandages come off with almost no resistance, which is a pretty good sign.

Finally, when the old bandages are all lying in a pile to one side, Sokka taps Zuko on the shoulder. Zuko understands him without either of them having to say anything, and he turns around so he and Sokka are facing each other. 

Sokka studies the wound on Zuko’s chest. It’s healing nicely enough, though it’s still angry and raw-looking. No signs of infection.

“Hold still,” he says, picking up the cloth and dipping it into the bowl. “This might sting.”

He steadies himself with one hand on Zuko’s shoulder and uses the other one to start cleaning the wound, the same way he did when he first dressed it. Zuko sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, and Sokka squeezes his shoulder in support. Despite the fact that the feeling of cold water on his wound can’t be comfortable, Zuko doesn’t make so much as a single sound of complaint.

Sokka finishes cleaning the wound and picks up the new bandages, winding them around Zuko’s torso over and over again. For the most part, he does it in silence—all the way up until he’s almost done.

As he leans over Zuko’s shoulder to loop the bandage around his back, Zuko speaks.

“Have you decided yet?” he asks quietly. “If you’re leaving?”

Sokka goes still. It’s not the most comfortable position to be stuck in—he’s got his chin on Zuko’s shoulder and his arms around Zuko’s back in some weird kind of half-embrace—but he doesn’t think he can handle this conversation if he’s looking Zuko in the face.

“No,” he finally says, passing the bandage to his other hand and finishing the loop. He draws back, but he keeps his eyes firmly fixed on his own hands as he wraps the bandage around Zuko’s chest. “I haven’t.”

Zuko hums. He does it right as Sokka leans forward again, and Sokka feels the vibrations go down his shoulder and into his ribs. 

“You know I’m fine if you leave, right?” Zuko asks. Sokka pauses. “You don’t—you don’t have to stay for me. If you want to leave, I’m fine with it.”

Something burns at the back of Sokka’s throat, an emotion that he thinks he recognises but doesn’t really want to name. “Yeah,” he says, pulling the bandage back around to the front. “I know.”

He tucks the end of the bandage into itself, then flattens his hand against the centre of Zuko’s chest. “There,” he says, swallowing. “All done.”

Zuko silently reaches up to take his hand. Sokka raises his head, meeting Zuko’s eyes as Zuko presses a kiss to the back of Sokka's fingers.

 _Oh,_ Sokka thinks weakly, as that unnamed emotion starts spreading through his chest like ink in water. It’s warm and smouldering, a bit like how he’d felt when he’d accidentally taken a too-big sip of Dad’s prune wine. _Oh._

“Thank you,” Zuko whispers. His words brush over Sokka’s knuckles, and then his fingers follow suit—he clasps Sokka’s hand in both of his, squeezing a little, and then lets it go.

Zuko stands and brushes past him, touching Sokka’s shoulder as he goes. That touch _burns,_ even though Sokka knows Zuko hadn’t been firebending when he did it. 

Sokka’s voice feels like it’s lodged in his throat as he watches Zuko stoop to pick up the bowl and bandages. He wants to speak, but can’t—not even as Zuko disappears into Ozai’s office, leaving Sokka on the balcony.

Sokka sits there, alone, until the sun is high in the sky.

* * *

Sokka spends his third day in Ba Sing Se pretending that it isn’t his third day in Ba Sing Se.

Katara and Aang are already packing their satchels. They plan to leave at sunset. Iroh’s given them an ostrich-horse carriage, and Sokka watches as his sister and friend pile their luggage into the back of the cart. It’s more than they came to Ba Sing Se with; Iroh, as the new Phoenix King, has given permission for Aang and Katara to take the bending scrolls with them. They have two new bags that are full of nothing but paper.

Sokka’s feeling restless. Fidgety. He hangs around the palace, but most of the workers are asleep; business starts at night, after all, when the lanterns go out. Toph and Teo had stayed up a little later to talk to him, but they’d ended up going to sleep sometime around midday. Sokka had staunchly refused to say anything even remotely like a goodbye. 

He still doesn’t know if he’s leaving.

His time is running out, and he needs to make a choice. Everyone else, it seems, already thinks he’ll be leaving at sunset; even if he hadn’t said it back, Toph and Teo had both hugged him (Toph a little grudgingly) and told him that they’d miss him. Piandao had gifted him with a sword that he said had been made from the metal of a fallen meteor. Even Azula had told him, curtly, that Ba Sing Se would be a little more boring without him around. 

Zuko, though…

Zuko hasn’t said anything.

Sokka’s barely seen him since that morning on the balcony. He knows Zuko and Iroh have been trying to put Azula’s name back in the records; apparently, there’s a specific space reserved for every name that’s meant to be there, and Ozai fucked it up when he’d taken away Azula’s. 

Sokka wonders if there’s a space for his name. He doesn’t know if he wants there to be a space or not.

He ends up spending most of his day on the balcony outside the workers’ dorms. It’s quiet there, and Sokka rests his chin on the railing and watches the shadows grow long as the sun sinks lower in the sky. He stares out towards the edge of the Upper Ring, where the zoo is; he doesn’t know if Zuko has the ability or authority to set the other captives of Ba Sing Se free, but he hopes he does.

When Aang comes to find him, in the middle of the afternoon, Sokka knows he can’t wait any longer.

Iroh’s waiting for them at the palace gate, sitting at the head of his animal-less carriage. This isn’t the cart that they’ll be leaving Ba Sing Se in; that cart’s already been moved to the main gate of Ba Sing Se, just outside the Lower Ring. Iroh’s just here to take them to it. Well, more accurately, he’s going to be taking them to the Jasmine Dragon, and then they’ll walk from there.

Sokka follows Aang into the carriage numbly. He sits across from Aang and Katara; Katara’s got an armful of bending scrolls lying across her lap, and when Aang gets in, she immediately pulls him into a conversation about how some of the waterbending forms aren’t too far off from airbending. She’s weaving a ribbon of water between her fingers, a proud smile on her face when Aang compliments her control. Sokka’s glad to see her finally getting to learn waterbending, but the nervousness roiling in the pit of his stomach makes it hard for him to focus.

They spend the rest of the ride like that: Aang and Katara chattering like hog-monkeys, and Sokka sitting silently across from them. He doesn’t think he’d be able to speak, even if he wanted to. His stomach is tying itself up into knots, and his knee’s started aching in sympathy.

Iroh finally brings them to a stop outside the Jasmine Dragon. He comes around to the back and opens the door for them with a smile, despite Aang insisting that they can get out themselves. 

“This is where I leave you,” Iroh says, bowing to them in the style of the Fire Nation. Aang and Katara bow back, then retreat to the edges of the plaza. They both know that Sokka will have a bit of a longer goodbye.

When did Sokka start thinking of it as a goodbye?

He stands in front of Iroh, and he finds that he can’t say anything. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

Iroh, gods bless him, takes it upon himself to break the silence. “Here,” he says warmly, beckoning for Sokka to hold out his hand. Sokka obliges, and Iroh places something small in the centre of his palm. “Consider this my parting gift.”

Sokka looks down at what Iroh’s just placed in his palm: a Pai Sho tile, the White Lotus. He knows just from looking at it that it’s not the one that Zuko stole, but his breath catches anyway.

He tries not to think about what happened the last time Iroh gave him a Pai Sho tile. His forehead tingles anyway.

“The White Lotus,” Iroh says gently, “is a powerful symbol. If you ever find yourself in a time of need, you might just find this useful.”

Sokka’s throat constricts. There are a thousand things he wants to say, but he ends up saying exactly none of them. Instead, he just closes his fist around the tile, then throws his arms around Iroh’s neck and hugs him tight.

“I still don’t know if I’m leaving,” he tells Iroh quietly. Iroh pats him on the shoulder and pulls back. 

“I have a feeling that you will know when the time comes,” he says sagely. “Now go. Your friends are impatient to leave.”

Sokka looks back. Aang and Katara are both shifting on their feet. Sokka knows that they don’t like Ba Sing Se—hell, if he was them, he wouldn’t like it either—but he can’t help but wish that they felt as indecisive about leaving as he did.

He nods at Iroh and slips the Pai Sho tile into his pocket. As he follows Aang and Katara out of the plaza, he looks back.

Azula is standing in the doorway of the Jasmine Dragon. Her arms are crossed, but as Sokka locks eyes with her, she raises one hand in a goodbye.

Sokka nods and raises his own hand in response. They stay like that until he turns the corner, and Azula, Iroh, and the Jasmine Dragon all fall out of sight.

* * *

The walk to the main gate is simpler than Sokka expected. Iroh must’ve roped Azula into this, because as the sun begins to set and the lanterns come to life, the way to the gate is clearly marked by lanterns burning with blue fire.

They follow Azula’s fire all the way to the Outer Wall. When they get there, it’s right in the middle of sunset, and the sunlight is heavy and golden. Sokka holds his hand up against the glare and squints—there, standing just outside the gate, is the cart.

Sokka’s heart flies up into his throat when he catches sight of Zuko, standing by the ostrich-horse’s head and stroking her feathers gently. Aang and Katara pull ahead of him and climb up into the cart, shoving aside the luggage to make it more comfortable to sit in. Sokka watches them with a lump in his throat.

He meets Zuko’s eye.

Zuko releases the ostrich-horse’s reins and starts walking towards him. Sokka takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

This is it. He’ll have to make his choice.

He meets Zuko just inside the gate, both of them turning sideways so that neither of them is closer to the carriage. Zuko’s a little taller than Sokka is, and he has to tilt his head up to look Zuko properly in the eye.

“So.” Zuko’s the first one to break the silence, flicking his gaze to the side. “Are you going to go with them?”

Sokka swallows. He turns his head just enough to catch sight of Aang and Katara, sitting side-by-side in Iroh’s cart. The scrolls are lying across Aang’s lap, and he’s telling Katara something, waving his hands around wildly. Katara’s laughing softly, her hand over her mouth. In the golden light of the late afternoon, they look like the kids that they are.

And that’s the crux of it, really. They’re _kids._ Katara might act like a mother sometimes, but that doesn’t take away the fact that she can barely handle money, or that neither she nor Aang know how to read a map. Sokka sighs and turns back to Zuko. 

“I know where I’m needed,” he tells him softly, “and it’s not here.”

Zuko nods. He looks like he was expecting this. “I understand.” He inclines his head at Aang and Katara. “They need you more than I do.”

And, well—Sokka’s heart stutters a bit at the implication that Zuko needs him at all, but he’s right. Aang and Katara _do_ need him. Just look at what happened when he left them alone in the Town Hall for a couple hours.

“I mean…” Sokka twists his hands. Why is he so _nervous?_ “It’s not like we’ll never see each other again, right?” 

Zuko’s gaze snaps up to meet his, wide with surprise. Sokka swallows and barrels on. “I could—I could come back. When they don’t need me anymore.” He squints at Zuko. “Just to clarify—you age, right? ‘Cause it’d be weird if I came back in, like, forty years, and you still looked the same.”

Zuko’s mouth curves up into a smile so soft it hurts Sokka’s heart. “Yes, Sokka. I age like humans do. I just don’t die like humans do.”

“We’re both going to pretend I know what that means,” Sokka says. He drops his gaze down to his hands; he’s fidgeting again. There’s this weird knot of nerves in his stomach, mixed with an emotion he can’t quite name. “Anyway, I was thinking. When I finish my adventure with _them_ …” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at Aang and Katara. “...Maybe I could, um. Go on an adventure with _you.”_

Zuko’s mouth drops open, just the tiniest bit. His whole face _softens,_ taking on an awed, open expression that has Sokka’s heart doing jumping jacks in his chest.

“I,” Zuko starts, and then seems to lose his voice. He blinks a few times, closing his mouth and pressing his lips together in a quiet smile. He kind of looks like he’s forgotten how to speak.

Sokka taps him on the nose. “You good?”

Zuko blinks a couple times, almost like he’s waking up. He lets out the tiniest, breathiest laugh Sokka’s ever heard, scrubbing one hand over his face.

“Yeah,” Zuko finally says, looking up at Sokka through his lashes. “An adventure. I’d like that.”

Sokka can’t stop the grin that spreads over his face. He feels like he’s holding something fragile, something new and delicate and bright. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Zuko echoes. “So I’ll...see you.”

“You’ll see me,” Sokka agrees. He can’t help but glance at Zuko’s mouth. They’re standing so close, close enough for him to lean in and just _do it,_ but...

But it doesn’t feel right. Sokka’s heard all the stories, and the hero always says goodbye with a kiss. Sokka isn’t a hero, and this isn’t a real goodbye, so they don’t exactly meet the criteria for a dramatic sunset kiss.

So he tips his head forward and presses his lips to Zuko’s scarred cheek instead. It only lasts a second before he’s drawing away again, drinking in the stunned look on Zuko’s face.

Sokka winks at him. “Consider that a promise.”

A flush spreads across Zuko’s cheeks, but he’s smiling, soft and small. “Consider that considered,” he replies, raising one hand to absently touch his cheek. His eyes flicker over to Aang and Katara. “You should go. They’re waiting for you.”

Sokka shrugs. “Well, technically, so are you.”

He’s expecting Zuko to make some kind of snarky remark, but instead he just smiles. “Yeah, I am,” he says, and Sokka’s heart flutters in his chest. “Don’t make me wait too long.”

“I won’t,” Sokka promises, grinning so hard his cheeks start to ache. 

And...well, there’s nothing more to say. He’s reluctant to turn his back on Zuko before he has to, so he does this kind of weird shuffling backwards walk towards the cart. It’s only when his foot scuffs against wood that he finally turns around, clambering onto the driver’s seat and dutifully ignoring the knowing look that Katara is sending his way.

“Shut up,” he tells her, winding the reins around his palms. 

She holds up her hands. “Hey, I wasn’t saying anything.”

“Yeah you were,” Sokka grumbles. He stares out at the open road ahead. The reins feel heavy in his hands.

Well. This is it. He’s got no more excuses to stay. Still, he can’t resist one last look over his shoulder. 

Zuko’s standing at the gate, his shoulders gilded by the sun. He raises one hand in salute and mouths, _‘Don’t take too long.’_

Sokka smiles, nods, and flicks the reins. With a snort and a scraping of claws against dirt, the ostrich-horse sets off. The cart starts trundling along the road, towards the setting sun.

Sokka closes his eyes and inhales, breathing in the faint scent of cherry blossoms on the breeze. He listens to the sounds of Aang and Katara shifting around in the back, to the gentle rattling of the wheels and the wind in the trees, to the sound of his own breathing as he exhales long and slow. 

He opens his eyes.

It’s hard to keep his gaze fixed on the sun, but Sokka does just that. He winds the reins a little tighter around his hands and stares straight ahead, at the long empty road that stretches out in front of him like the path of an arrow.

Sokka turns away from Ba Sing Se, and he doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my guys, gals, and nonbinary pals...we did it. it's over.  
> (actually, it's not over, because there's still a lot of this series left, but! cause and effect is now officially done!)
> 
> I'm not sure when I'll start putting out the rest of the series, but the school term is almost over so I might actually have another part up in a few weeks. Btw, the rest of the series won't have any super long stories like this one, but a bunch of shorter stories (probably under 10k, though some might go over). 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who's stuck around to read this story, and especially those who left kudos, comments, or even made art (??? I'm still in awe of the fact that this fic has actual _art_.) I'm really bad at replying to comments, but I promise you that I read every single one and they make my day. 
> 
> I'm putting a list of all the (insanely talented) art so far here, to make things easier for anyone who missed some. If y'all wanna come scream at me on tumblr, my @ is azenkii!  
>    
> [Art by casadefreewill on Tumblr](https://casadefreewill.tumblr.com/post/618927332496916480/sketch-dump-mostly-inspired-by-azenkis-atla-x)
> 
> [Art of Chapter 8 by casadefreewill on Tumblr](https://casadefreewill.tumblr.com/post/619033330346803200/continue-to-recommend-azenkis-azenkii-cause)
> 
> [Ghibli Screenshot Redraw by dickpuncherdraws on Tumblr](https://dickpuncherdraws.tumblr.com/post/619127758263566336/zukka-x-spirited-away-inspired-by-azenkiis-fic)
> 
> [Art of Chapter 6 by thisisjustmud on Tumblr](https://thisisjustmud.tumblr.com/post/625788172677382144/yes-its-mostly-tracing-yes-the-sparrow-anatomy-is)
> 
> [(Another) Ghibli Screenshot Redraw by dickpuncherdraws on Tumblr](https://dickpuncherdraws.tumblr.com/post/627660642263924736/zukka-x-spirited-away-again-been-thinking-about)


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